When the airplanes hit the World Trade Center ten years ago today, I was a 17-year-old high school senior. New York City and Washington, D.C. were another world away from south Texas. Our day had not quite begun when Dad called to tell us to turn on the television. That was the first image—the plane stuck in one of the buildings. I thought the pilot must have had a heart attack, that it was a bad accident. But as we watched the second plane hit, I remember seeing my mother react. It was no accident. We just sat there in front of the TV, for hours. We watched the towers fall soon after.
The whole day seemed suspended from reality. Mom left the TV on all day, the news anchors were frightened, and the scenes looked like a war zone. I remember the word “surreal” being used constantly. The anchors couldn’t think of a way to describe the horrifying scenes in their own neighborhood. Life didn’t really change, other than stricter flying regulations. I flew a month after 9/11, and security didn’t check my ID. They said I was too young to be a terrorist.
A year later, I moved to the East Coast to attend college, so I never saw the post-9/11 damage. I only saw a repaired Pentagon and a cleared out Ground Zero. Ten years later, I love the East Coast. I never knew the old one, the one that mourned scars on two of its beautiful cities. I know the indirect effects well: the sprawl and traffic that came from new security and government contracts. My husband and many of my friends work in these fields. We are the 9/11 generation—a good deal of our lives has been defined by that day.
As a parent, it surprised me when I realized I would have to explain all of this to Nate. Seven years before he was born, the world changed. He’ll never know the difference. I’ll have to tell him that you used to be able to watch your family leave at the airport, that security at buildings didn’t take so long, that adults cried watching people die on live television.
But because I have to resort to words, pictures, and maybe a few YouTube videos, he will only see a reflection of 9/11’s significance. Like my grandparents talking about Kennedy’s assassination, it will be something he sees in a museum. It’s history, not life.
I can’t change that. But I can do this: pull out the newspapers and the magazines I saved and just show him how the world reacted. I can tell him what I remember, how things are different. I can show him pieces of the wreckage at the Newseum and tell him that it was part of a great tragedy.
On that day, I’ll tell Nate the bit of history that I remember, and remind him that it’s something worth telling and retelling.