In Memory of 9/11

I was in 7th grade and I'd just gotten into my math class when one of the kids said that a plane had flown into one of the twin towers in New York.  I didn't believe him, a lot of us didn't.  Then our math teacher came in and told us the same thing, and told us that another plane had flown into the other tower.  The school issued an announcement that the teachers were not allowed to turn on the TVs to see what was going on and that we should go about our days as usual.  Some teachers turned on their TVs anyway, but none of my teachers did.  Some kids were checked out of school early, but many of us stayed.  My aunt was in New York, and she works in the city.  We didn't know where she was or if she was safe until that evening.

Because I was young and I never actually saw the footage of September 11 attacks, it's still almost like a dream.  I visited New York when I was 15 and I went to Ground Zero.  I took a picture:

I'd seen pictures of the skyline of New York before the attacks, but I'd never seen New York in person before 9/11.  Seeing Ground Zero like that felt like a dream, too.  That was in 2004, three years after the attacks.


Before 9/11, I doubted that anything historic would happen in my lifetime.  This terrorist attack has already been added into school history books.  What I was told is true:  I'll never forget where I was or how I felt when the towers fell; the experience is something that lives on.