13 Years Later

I find it hard to believe that it has actually been 13 years since 9/11. Of course, I generally am terrible at realizing how much time has passed. In my brain, the 90s weren't that long ago (but they were actually quite some time ago, heck I know people who were born in the 2000s). Still, it doesn't seem like that terrible day happened 13 years ago.

I still remember very specific details about where I was and what I was doing on that fall day in 2001. Some of the details are starting to fade, but I don't think that I will ever completely forget it. In September 2001, I was in high school, tenth grade specifically. We had just moved into our new house 2 months prior and gotten a German Shepherd puppy the month before. I walked to school because my high school was about 2 blocks away from home and even when I was old enough to drive, there wasn't much point in driving such a short distance.

My normal time to leave for school was about 6:45am to get to school and have a little time to socialize before classes started. So on that fateful day, I left my house about a minute before the first plane hit the first tower. The world was changing right as I walked to school, but I had no idea. My first class of the day was Geometry, which was held out in the trailers the school had set up in the parking lot to account for growing student populations. One classmate was always a few minutes late to class and that day when she came in she announced to the class that an airplane had crashed into the World Trade Center.

At the time, we had no idea what was about to unfold, so a few jokes were made about how could you miss such a big building. Terrorism was not high on the list of possible things that could happen in our minds as us teenagers had no real reference point for it then. The one drawback to classes in the trailers (other than the heat early in the school year) is that there are no TVs. The rest of the school had TVs in most of the classrooms and cable hookups as well.

My second class of the day was Biology and when I arrived the TV was on a news channel. I watched and still couldn't exactly comprehend what was happening as I discovered the second tower had been hit as well. My class watched in silent horror as the first tower collapsed, I couldn't help but think of all the people who were dying. It was later, during my third period class that an announcement was made over the intercom to the whole school with a basic summary of what was happening.

I remember walking home during my lunch hour to check in with my brother (who had just graduated high school the previous spring) and my grandma (who at the time lived with us). They had the news on, but my grandma was trying to just go about her normal business and not focus too much on the terrible images on the TV. Some point later in the day, I remember we watched President Bush address the nation and announce that it had been terrorist attacks. One teacher refused to turn on the TV, feeling that we didn't need to stare at that kind of thing endlessly.

For days, the TV carried nothing but wall to wall coverage of the aftermath of the terrorist attacks. Then, at some point, the coverage slowly diminished and normal programming started coming back on. I remember watching the first comedy program since the attacks and thinking it felt weird to laugh again. I remember how across the country, people came together and vowed to never forget the events of that day.

Now it has been exactly 13 years since that tragic day. Things have changed a lot in the intervening years. I still remember the events as though they happened much more recently than that. I haven't forgotten what happened, maybe some of the small details, but not the way that things changed forever. Thinking back on it still brings strong emotions too.