What this day Means...

I don't think most of us will forget where we were and what we were doing when we heard about it. Even those of us 1400 miles away in the middle of Kansas. I was beginning my second year teaching, and had just finished taking roll for one of my biology classes when the chemistry teacher from across the hall came into my room. She walked directly over to me and whispered in my ear, "two planes simultaneously crashed into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon..." My first thought, honestly, was that she was telling me a joke (...so a Rabbi, and Priest, and Minister all walk into a bar...). My second thought was "why in the hell is she interrupting my class to tell me this. The look on her face confirmed that my third thought was correct: what she was saying had really happened.

Our administrators turned on several TV's in the commons area of the high school, and an open pass was given for teachers to bring their students out to watch the news as it broke. As I shuffled my class through the hallway and into the commons area, I was taken back to that day at St. John's grade school when Sister Rita Ann shuffled my 4th grade class into the hallway to gather with our schoolmates around the one TV in the building to watch the Challenger explode over and over and over again in slow motion. Now, I as moved my own class towards one of the formative moments of their lives, I caught glimpses of conversations and information from the classrooms that we passed: "...a third plane hit the second tower...Tower 1 fell...Pentagon burning..."

We got to the commons area just in time to see Tower 2 fall...the death of thousands broadcast live to millions. I remember being stunned...almost numb. It's like when you look outside on a snowy day and there's no sound, no wind, no smells...just a vast quiet emptiness. I remember some of the conversations I had with my students at that moment. Who would do this? What will the US do? Could this possibly be just a really bad accident? At one point, I simply looked at a young girl and said, "you'll remember this moment for the rest of your life." I remember the conversations with my colleagues. What's "Al Qaeda"? How does Iraq fit into this? Is it true there was a fourth plane? Nuke 'em all! And, of course, how will this affect gas prices?

I don't think that the human mind is neurologically capable of fully understanding something like the September 11 attacks in real time. It needs processing time to take such a dramatically tragic event and assimilate it into our individual worldviews. And as the true scope of what happened became apparent over the hours, days and weeks to come, each of us came to grips with the attacks in our own ways. For most of us, the feelings of helplessness that we experienced as we watched the towers fall was replaced with a feeling of helplessness as we watched the friends and loved ones of the victims search for, and grieve for, the dead and missing. The acute stinging rage of those first confused moments was replaced with a deep national pride as we witnessed an outpouring of public support and goodwill the likes of which has never been seen before.

But this coming-to-terms didn't end when that fall of 2001 turned to winter. It continued for months and years to come...it continues today. It has continued through the cleanup and the rebuilding. It has continued through the two bloody, length, and ongoing wars that were spun from it. It has continued through two Presidential elections. Indeed, it has continued even through a time when 9/11 has become more of an icon of political division and frearmongering than a solemn remembrance. It has now continued through the memorial events of eight anniversaries, and it will continue through many more of these. Much as my generation is still learning lessons from the Pearl Harbor of our grandparents, the lessons of September 11, 2001 will still be evolving when my young son reaches adulthood and has his own family,and is setting down trying to record his own thoughts about the inevitable event that will define his generation's moment in history.

The funny thing about historical events is that they happened in a time that we can't visit anymore. The hurt and the pain and the ugly of that day can never be undone. Those lost to the rubble of the World Trade Center, and the fire of the Pentagon, and a grassy field in Pennsylvania will never be brought back. And while "9/11" has become an icon of political division and doomsday scare tactics, the tragic events of that day will continue to teach us lessons as long as we remember them.

And that's why we must remember. And that's why we will remember. Always.