9 11 My Story

This is last Friday's SI Ferry armed US Coast Guard escort. Not a part of our world until 9/11/01

Earlier this week I responded to a discussion entitled, "9-11... Where were you?" Here is my choppy story. Perhaps someday I will be able to tell it with more elegance.

I was in the teacher's lounge of my school when the first plane hit. My school is right across the river from downtown Manhattan.

I was on the phone with my mother trying to find out if she spoke to my brother overseas in the Marines when the plane hit the Pentagon.

I spent the day in front of classrooms while the principal called over names of students whose parents had come to pick them up. It was their third day of high school. They had questions when the principal said that it "appeared" that this might not be an accident.

They said that didn't make sense. They said, "Who would do that? Why would they do that? They died too." They didn't understand the mere concept of dying just to kill others. I didn't know how to explain it to them. I told them I didn't understand it, but it might be possible.

I had a break in between classes when a colleague of mine said to me, "I can't believe they're gone..." I asked him who he was talking about. When he told me "the towers" I thought I would fall over. He walked with me down the block to show me the plumes of smoke as the military trucks drove by us.

Back in my classroom I nearly jumped out of my skin when the military planes flew right outside my fourth floor window bringing up the river water below them. I heard later that the students that were brought to our school from lower Manhattan, when their teachers ran with them to the Staten Island ferry having no other idea where to go, all screamed when those planes flew by... they thought it was another attack. It sounded the same to them.

I operated on automatic the entire day. I have no idea how I made it through, but when I made it home, unable to make phone contact with my mother since the morning call, I broke. I cried, I screamed, I asked where my brother was, where my boyfriend was, where my best friend was, where my neighbors were, my family, people I hadn't talked to in years.... I just needed to know where EVERYONE was and it was an impossible task.

9-11 taught me and my students a lot of things. Not all of them good. We learned how frightening humanity can be. However, we also learned about how unified we can be in our school and our city when attacked. I had a lot of anger about the world my students were exposed under my watch, my initial thought, always, when I think of 9-11 remains, " How DARE they."

How dare they do that to my students.

How dare they do that to my family.

How dare they do that to my city.

How dare they do that to my country.

How dare they do that to my fellow man.

How DARE they.