Remembrance

Where were you when the towers of the World Trade Center collapsed?  Can you remember what you were doing at that time?

I can remember where I was.  I was in eleventh grade.  It was first hour, and I was in my Journalism class at Dow High School.  It was just an ordinary day, but then I heard the news.

The news came from some people in the library.  This was because the journalism classroom was connected to the library.  The office that connected the classroom and library had a television set.

On the television, I saw an image that totally left me in shock.  An airplane crashed into the World Trade Center.  As I was watching this, I started noticing other students crowding around that TV.  The shock and disbelief began to fill each one of us, as we saw the disturbing images.  Images of people jumping out of the upper stories of the tower and falling to their death.  Images of an enormous crowd evacuating the city with a dark cloud of smoke and falling debris behind them.  This was no movie.  This was real life.

Before long, there was no class work to be working on.  Mrs. Rau, our journalism teacher let us watch the TV that replayed the footage of the collapse of one of the towers.  I guess that you could say that it was journalism, so it was still relevant to the class.

But at this point, it was not about journalism.  Everything else did not matter at that point.  All that mattered was the lives of those who were taken.  Both on the plane and those who were hit by the plane.  What mattered was the welfare of our country.  Uncertainty and fear began to surface in the hearts of many that day.  Would another war begin?  Would there be another attack?  All this was felt that day.

Where were you when the towers of the World Trade Center collapsed?  Can you remember what you were doing at that time?

Eleven years later, I can still vaguely remember that day.  And while I don’t think about it regularly, I can’t help but recall it every year.  This is a day that I still have not forgotten.  My prayers go out to those who have lost a loved one on this day, whether it was in New York, Washington DC, or Pennsylvania.  America has not forgotten about this day and neither have I.

And with that, I will take a moment of silence to reflect on the innocent lives that were lost on this day.  A moment of remembrance.

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©2012  K. L. Walker