Remembrance

Will anybody forget what they were doing on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001? My two children had both been delivered to their respective schools. I had made an early morning run to the grocery store, and was on my home with the radio on when I heard the first report. I brought my groceries home and went to a rehearsal for a play I was doing. When I got to the theater, the radio was on and we heard the reports of the second plane, the plane in DC, and the one in Pennsylvania. It seemed weird and surreal. We cancelled our rehearsal and went home. One of my friends was visiting from out of town, and he called me and told me to turn on the television. I did. The images are still in my head.

It was so difficult to be watching something so horrible that was so far and yet so close. I wanted to pick up my children. I wanted my husband to be home. My parents were overseas on a European trip, and I started to worry that they wouldn't be able to get home if the governments shut down the airways. What a morning- what a terrible waste.

The students I am teaching now have only vague memories of that horrible morning. They were 6 and 7 year olds who now live with the aftermath of terror. Waiting in long security lines at the airport is commonplace for them. Using airplanes as weapons is also a concept that is familiar.
I am asking my students this morning to write about what freedom means to them. It should be interesting to find out.