I can’t believe it’s been eight years. Eight years since the 9/11 attack on America. I remember exactly what I was doing when I heard about the attack – it was passing period in high school. I was walking outside to my next class. I bumped into a friend who cracked a joke about some “stupid pilot that flew his plane into a building.”
We laughed.
My heart sank as I spent the next five hours of the school day glued to the television screen in every single class. I couldn’t believe it.
I watched the second plane fly into building two in band class.
I was devastated. And I didn’t even know anyone in the area. I was miles away in Colorado, but my thoughts and prayers were in New York City.
And I couldn’t believe that just a couple hours prior, I thought it was a joke.
It seemed so surreal. And I couldn’t wrap my head around the idea that people would have so much hatred toward the United States to kill thousands of people and themselves. To this day, I can’t believe there is so much hatred in this world.
“If we learn nothing else from this tragedy, we learn that life is short and there is no time for hate.” – Sandy Dahl, the wife of Flight 93 pilot Jason Dahl.
The news coverage was incessant and I was constantly watching. I wanted to know everything. I wanted to know all the details regardless of whether they’d result in nightmares. Which, more times than not, they did.
I dug up a poem I wrote shortly after the attack.
A Cloud of Smoke
It’s like looking through a bubble
to the crimson stained sky.
The wavy mirror
in the house of mirrors
distorting the proportion.
Baffled by the size
of the rubble left behind.
In your mind, nothing is real.
Blink, and pinch all you want
you will not awake from this nightmare.
This octopus
strangles thousands
of throats with hatred.
This fire flight
has locked the door
and taken off
and raised its wheels.
Consider it; hopeless.
Take a moment today and remember.
{ 2 comments }
I thought it was a joke when I first heard about it.
I was in high school, and at that point I always slept with the radio on. The show I woke up to always had some stupid jokes going on, and I remember thinking how horrible it was to play that kind of joke. I mean, really, right?
Then I went upstairs to the kitchen and mom had all three tvs on a different news station, running from room to room to see if anyone was reporting something new or different.
And then we drove to the orthodontist to get my braces put on.
Survey says: an all-around shitty day in America.
I’m with ya… I can’t believe it’s been eight years. (Also? I hate that eight years sounds SO LONG but I can remember it so clearly. Boo getting old!)
WE WILL REMEMBER 9/11
Also, if you both want to feel really old, lol. I was in 5th grade when this happened. And strangely enough, I remember every moment of that day. Couldn’t tell you about anything else in 5th grade though.
Vince
BTW, great post Lauren. Keep it up!