September 11, 2001, we were in first grade, sitting in class. All of the sudden the second grade teacher ran in the room more panicked than anyone we'd ever seen. She said something to our teacher about planes hitting the twin towers.
Why were they crying? We were getting out of school early! So what if the phone lines were down. You could call whoever you were trying to call when they were fixed again. They could wait that long.
And why does it matter if buildings fell? They're just buildings, right?
We were let out early that day.
Every year now, we see a video on that same day. Every year we will see those planes, and that smoke. We'll see the distant pieces of fabric desperately being waved out the windows, begging for help. We'll see the people that were so scared that they tried to be brave by jumping out of the same windows they looked out of everyday, the same windows that were so far from the ground...
We'll see those videos and hear those stories.
We'll feel so sad inside and might even shed a few tears. We may not have lost anyone that day. But we could have.
Little things can change a life, even save them. Losing a child's blanket and missing your flight. Someone had a meeting that didn't start for a couple minutes and decided that a walk around the block was better than going into the building right away. If only everyone had been so lucky.
We didn't understand.
We weren't scared or sad.
We were only confused.
But today, we remember.
