Twenty years ago – before the news apps that sent alerts to our phones in real time, before every classroom had internet, before communications became constant – I was standing before high school juniors, getting ready to begin period two.
I remember a student coming in saying that the Twin Towers were gone. I brushed him off, knowing that was incomprehensible. Afterall, my father was supposed to be flying out to New York, and, surely, I would have known.
But, then, the principal announced on the PA system that the United States of American was under attack, and that planes had crashed into those buildings.
In a world of disconnect – when I couldn’t text my mom – I spent my passing periods begging the teacher across the hall to help me figure out where those planes took off. In my news-locked world, I couldn’t comprehend the magnitude.
It was only when I got home and had the ability to watch the news that I had any idea – and, at the time, it was pretty vague yet – what was truly happening. It was a time without access to 24/7 news, and news was just pouring over every channel. It was then that I saw the gravity.
My father’s plane was grounded before he even got to the airport, and I don’t think I fully comprehended how thankful I was until years later.
Today, twenty years later, I still get chills when this day comes around. I still feel anxious. I still cry when I see images of that fateful day. I still remember the eeriness of a vacant sky.
I couldn’t believe that life would ever look the same.
Twenty years and a pandemic later, my entire life perspective has changed. I was a brand-new English teacher then, without a husband, without a family, without any inkling of what my own future would hold. I had so much to learn after that before I could unpack this day.
People talk about the heroes that day. People talk about those who lost their lives. People talk about those who survived. People talk.
I’m a person who is moved by images, too. Older, with children of my own, I see videos and stills of strangers pouring water on strangers’ faces to clear the debris. I see strangers holding hands, dragging them out to safety. I see first responders doing what they do without question. I see people running in where I think – no, I know – I might have run out. In those images, I see despair being pierced by strangers who held out hope. I see an America where people came together to support and raised up strangers, upheld our democracy, and reached across political aisles and religious aisles in unity under our flag.
My country is still that country. I have had twenty more years to become more experienced. I have had twenty more years to meet people who are real-life superheroes. I have had twenty more years to understand the pain, but twenty more years to understand the compassion.
I witnessed veterans coming together yesterday – I listened as a Vietnam veteran and an Afghanistan veteran talked about their very different returns. And I thought about how much those two groups now have in common.
We are a country distracted, Lt. Col. U.S. Army (ret.) Ryan Yantis said as he spoke in Crystal Lake. We are a country distracted, much like we were twenty years ago. He said we are arguing and not listening and not paying attention, while another country, with “angry men who want to hurt us,” looms unnoticed in the distance.
Lt. Col. Yantis was in the Pentagon that day – mere minutes before the attack, he had stood in that space. He survived. And he told me that he spoke today, from “scars and not wounds.”
He spoke about the other survivors – from all areas – who recall the first responders who helped them – the stoic ones who were determined to climb the stairs and save anyone they could. Yantis, himself, remembered the people who brought food, signs, and encouragement in the days after the attack, which he said brought those who had survived, comfort.
He spoke of the flags flying across the nation, and the surge of patriotism – where, people put the division aside, took a breath, and spoke to one another, and, above all, listened.
And, as Yantis encouraged those in attendance today to remember the cost – the people whose lives were lost and the people whose lives were changed forever – but to never forget, and to “find common ground,” and to “be the people helping others,” his message spoke to me more than any.
I think these are the words on the tongues of nearly all Americans: We need more common ground and less division. The men and women who fight for our country deserve that. The men and women who died on September 11 deserve that.
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