Remembering 9-11: Who Could Forget?

Every year on 9/11, my Facebook feed is filled with admonitions to “Never Forget.” I often shake my head and roll my eyes. Who are these people who can forget? Has anyone who was over the age of 12 at the time been able to forget?

Those who slept in that day and didn’t see people plunging out of windows a hundred stories high to escape the flames. Can they forget?

Those who didn’t have to attempt an explanation (and fail) for a room full of teenagers expecting an English lesson and getting a real time horror movie instead. Can they forget?

Those whose mother didn’t have a flight to DC and meeting at the Pentagon scheduled for that day. Can they forget?

Perhaps, but I will never forget.

On the morning of September 11, 2001, I was walking my high school English students back from the library when a friend rushed down the hallway, only pausing long enough to whisper to me, “Turn on your TV. NOW.” As my students and I watched, I dialed my mom’s office number and my parents’ home number over and over. Of course, for hours no calls would connect. I imagine everyone with a loved one in the air, in DC, in New York, near any airport, near every military base—in fact, nearly everyone in the whole country, was trying to make a call. Late in the afternoon, the phones finally rang, only to receive no answer at either number. Toward evening, my father finally answered at home and told me that my mom’s trip had been cancelled. She was safe at her office in town. I am not sure what I said after that, but I managed to hang up before sinking to the floor and sobbing. I will never forget.

Plenty of people have way more harrowing, heroic, sad, and tragic stories of that day. Yet even if you weren’t one of those people, I believe it touched us all as Americans. It changed us, and it changed our nation, in both good ways and bad. Never before or since have I felt the patriotism that rose after 9/11. I have also never felt as sad or afraid for our nation as I was watching the news the days following the attack. Never before or after did I feel as helpless to do anything against the violence and hate in the world.

Still with heavy hearts months later, my husband and I got in the car to visit my parents for Thanksgiving. Just two years into our (mostly his) plan to wait four years to have children, my husband turned to me and said, “Let’s have a baby.” OK. I know the decision was partly a result of our age and stage in life, but the 9/11 attack certainly nudged us into action. Not only did we realize how frail and brief life could be, but I also wanted to give a big, fat middle finger to the cloud of sadness and fear that seemed to linger over everything that fall. And really—what better way to say, “Here’s some HOPE and LOVE for you, World,” than a baby?

So we did. Thirteen couples in our crowd of friends also had babies in the ten months surrounding our son’s birth. To me, our tiny baby boom was the big, fat middle finger to hate, fear, and sadness that I had been looking for. A wave of joy rippled through our world—our personal world, if not the great big world. It wasn’t THE solution, but it was a step in the right direction—a step in remembering the beauty and greatness we are all capable of amid the darkness.

Plenty of people have way more harrowing, heroic, sad, and tragic stories of that day. Yet even if you weren’t one of those people, I believe it touched us all as Americans. It changed us, and it changed our nation, in both good ways and bad.

I said before that I haven’t felt the same patriotism before or since September 11, nor have I felt the same sadness, fear, or helplessness. That’s only partially true. Try as I might to prevent it, the recent string of tragedies both here and abroad combined with the grim tone of national politics is allowing the same feelings to take root in me again. I’ve been feeling scared, frustrated, angry, confused, and worried. Every time I turn on the television, I can see that I am not the only one feeling that way. I can’t see how we are going to see our way out of the hate and violence we are currently mired in.

But then I look at my children. Those same babies who were a wave of joy for our little community are more than halfway to adulthood. My hope, my vision, my goal is for them to be the change we need in the world. When I feel helpless to do anything useful, the one thing I know I can do teach them. I can teach them empathy. I can teach them kindness. I can teach them to be includers instead of excluders. I can help them see the good in all of us. I can teach them to ask questions when they don’t understand others. I can teach them how to listen, even when answers are hard to hear.