10 Years Ago.

“Katie, you need to wake up. Something… something has happened”.

Ten years later, and I can still remember the exact moment I began processing what was unfolding. I was so incredibly young and naive, but the second I ran downstairs to see what was on television, I could feel my childhood just washing away.

Reporters were just arriving to the scene of what looked to be a catastrophic accident. Maybe we were stupid, maybe we just didn’t want to believe what was about to happen, but I remember thinking “what kind of idiot pilot runs a plane into a building?!”. We could see the people waving clothes out of their windows, begging helicopters to come save them.

Then it happened.

Ten years later, and I can still remember putting my hand over my mouth, pointing at the televisions and saying “oh my god” when the second plane hit. As soon as it happened, reporters started screaming how we were under attack. I remember going through the mental cue of anyone I knew that might have been traveling that day.

Soon, reporters were crying that people had began jumping from the towers in an attempt to survive. Some were even seen jumping out of the windows, holding hands. It was around this time that my mom began ushering me into the bathroom to get ready for school, I can still see it clearly in my head. Maybe she knew what was going to happen and maybe she was trying to shield me from the notion that, indeed, the world is a really terrible place sometimes. Either way, her attempts at getting me to move were thwarted the second the towers fell. Neither of us moved, neither of us said anything. The second those towers fell and the city of New York was engulfed in debris, my life was forever changed.

Ten years later, and I can still remember going into every classroom that day. My teachers didn’t say anything because no one would have listened. We just sat in front of a TV and watched over and over again what had happened. There was a teacher of mine who said “we won’t be doing anything else today because it’s important for you all to remember every detail of what has happened, where you were, and how you felt”. Even in that moment, I knew she was right.

A man who lived 3 blocks from my high school had called his wife early that morning saying he was on a hijacked plane and they were going to do their best to reclaim it before it reached the White House. Tom Burnett, that was his name. Now, as a woman, I can only imagine the feeling of getting that call, but on that day, all I knew was that many of the roads leading into my school were shut down because the Feds were creating a homebase at his house. Reports that came out later said that in the call to his wife, he said “all of us are going to die, but three of us are going to do something”.

Ten years later, and I can’t forget his name if I tried.

Every year on this upcoming day, I get a sense of melancholy. We remember the firefighters who ran into the burning buildings when everyone else was running out. We remember the people who leaped from the towers because they had some sort of faith that it was better than going down with the building. We remember the families who posted missing persons signs all over NYC in the weeks following. We remember hearing his name and going “O-who-ma bin What-a?”. We remember all of these things, not because we want to, but because it’s engrained in our history. It’s become as much a part of us as our first moments of triumph. We have become a part of that story that will be passed on to our children’s children, and so forth, for the rest of time.

Ten years later, and I realize only now that some things never leave you.