Blog: 9/11 Through the Eyes of a 12-Year-Old

Everyone has a personal story about September 11, 2001.

It was a catastrophic and horrific event that resonated with each person who witnessed it.  I still remember the day clearly.  I was 12-years-old, a sixth grader, when it happened.

“Chandler, wake up,” my mom said as she woke me from a deep sleep. “An airplane just struck the World Trade Center.”

She was rushing to turn on the TV I kept in the corner of my room.  I had never heard of the World Trade Center.  I watched the national news replay footage of an airplane colliding with one of two
towers.  I began to wonder how this horrible accident could’ve happened.

Then the second plane hit the other tower. Words like “terrorist attack” and “hijacking” were being spoken by the people on TV. They slowly sank in.

I watched the news for as long as I could until my mom came in to remind me to get ready for school.  I did so quickly. 

In the midst of watching TV with my mom, we contemplated whether or not I should go to school. My mom had been on the phone with some trusted friends who assured her that it was safe, since we were all the way across the country in a small, unknown town in California.

Years later, my mom told me that she kept thinking about picking me up from school all day anyway.

On the way to school, we listened to the radio speak of nothing else.  The day was cloudy, dark, and threatening to rain.  It felt like the end of the world.  I arrived to school and discovered that half of the kids on the playground knew what happened while the other half were blissfully unaware until they received the news from us.  My classmates and I stuck close together that morning, crowding close to our trusted and beloved teacher who was just as confused as we were.

When we went into the classroom to start the day as if it were any other day, the class began talking about the event.

It wasn’t long before my teacher turned on the TV.  We watched quietly; occasionally we would interject with questions to our teacher without raising our hands.  He didn’t seem to mind. 

One classmate asked the question that was on my mind, what surely must been on the mind of everyone not just in the country, but around the world.

“Is there going to be a World War Three?”

 My teacher answered with honesty: “I don’t know.”

We began to wonder aloud what to do for the rest of the day and my teacher said
 he didn’t want us to watch the TV. 

That was exactly what I wanted to do. 
Maybe if we watched long enough, we could figure out some answers and
make sense of how and why this happened. We went about the lesson plan for the
rest of the day, but the mood was solemn.  We as students had trouble concentrating on school for long.  We as kids were restrained on the playground.

After school, my mom and I watched the TV for the remainder of the day.  When I posed the question about World War Three to her, she also admitted to not knowing. All I had was her with me. I then realized that dozens of kids just like
me lost their parents that morning. I became instantly grateful for that.

My aunt had died a couple of months prior to 9/11. I had only begun to understand the concept of cancer, loss, and death.  Many adult situations like those began to sink in a bit deeper due to my aunt’s death and my
evolution to becoming a teenager.

Just when life started to make sense for me again, 9/11 occurred.  Ever since then, my perception of reality has
been radically changed.

It’s hard to fathom everything that we lost on that day, especially the thousands of lives.  Many lost a parent, a spouse, a child, a relative, a friend.  Many lost
confidence.  Many lost security. 

As for me and my generation, we lost innocence.  But like many others, I witnessed something miraculous.  I saw how united
we became in the face of tragedy. 

I learned stories of bravery and selfless acts of courage to save the lives of others, willing to die. I realized that we, as a country, can act together, how heartbreak can link us with an unbreakable bond. 

And ten years later, I’m still moved by what I see and hear about 9/11.