I Remember

Where were you when the planes hit? What were you wearing? Were you eating? Sitting at work? Sitting in class? What did you think when you were told? How did you feel? Were you scared?

It has been 17 years since that day, and I can remember it like it was yesterday. Not because I lost a close family member or friend, and not because I was physically close enough to the Pentagon or Lower Manhattan to be in any real danger. I remember being called into an all school meeting where we normally would have had assembly. Some of the teachers gathered at the front of the hall were red faced, their cheeks wet with tears. Others were grasping each other as if they’d felt the tremors of an earthquake. Didn’t they?

Unlike this Tuesday, September 11th, that day almost two decades ago was a perfect ten. By mid-morning you knew it would be one of those balmy summer days, one where the sun hangs in the sky until late evening. In the northeast I find summer sputters slowly to a stop like an engine that’s overheated one too many times. In September, you might get a handful of warm days with no humidity before the rain and then the freeze set in. In 2001, September 11th was during such a week. I can still remember the sounds of the fighter jets as they roared across the sky during the days following the attacks. My mom said it was probably similar to the days following Pearl Harbor, with the country reeling from the attacks under a painted blue sky.

I can remember wanting to feel close to my family. I wanted to be close to my friends and my teachers. The adrenaline coursing through my veins after hearing that we had in fact been attacked scared and amazed me. I didn’t know how to channel the energy and anger alone. No one did. So we all went home to be close to those that could help us through.

Since then, I’ve graduated high school and college and moved to New York City. It really is a melting pot of cultures, races, ethnicities, and religions. I truly wouldn’t want it any other way. And, even though my family wasn’t nearby on this most somber anniversary, I could feel the community I live in hunkering down together.

On my run tonight, as Jewish families celebrated the new year looking out over the water in Riverside Park, I could feel their prayers. I said some too. For a Happy New Year. For peace for all of us. For the families of those who lost their lives on this day so many years ago. For those men and women who never got to say goodbye. Your sacrifice started a new era and new chapter for all of us in 2001. But we will never stop coming together to write a better future, and we will never forget.