I taught seventh grade English from 2005 to 2010. I think it was 2008 when we had ‘a moment of silence for 9/11 victims. We were doing that my first year teaching because my first year teaching was 2005.
I think that it was 2008 right after the ‘moment of silence’ were a student asked me, “Miss, what was that like?” I could feel my demeanor change. In a completely sober tone, I said, “Sad.”
With a straight face, I said, “I was in college and six months pregnant. I had an auditorium class where we were cut off from the world as we were we’re going over art history slides. That’s the class I was in when it happened.
So, we leave class and I’m headed to my second class of the day which was women’s history and I get seated in my desk when a guy walks into the door and announces that the second tower fell. The woman who sat next to me, used to work in that building, and she began to cry. Hysterically cry, just as the professor comes in and cancels class and tells us to find a TV somewhere. It was scary and we did not know what was going to happen next.”
I don’t know that my seventh grade students were anticipating that answer but that’s what I said. Today, I didn’t realize it was September 11 until I got on Facebook:
I’d see something like that and I would feel a catch in my throat. And I continued to scroll:
A Facebook friend posted this, and I started to cry:
All day long I have thought about a writing class I had that was in session on September 12, 2002. She assigned a ‘free writing’ assignment and said that we could write about something that I don’t remember, but the last thing she said is what I wrote about. She said,“Of course, to commemorate yesterday’s events you could write about ‘loss.’”
My Mom and I had just watched a 20/20 and the babies were born after 9/11. Their mothers were pregnant or did not find out until AFTER their husbands died.
I remember at me and my Mom watched that pretty much without talking. It was sad. I remember that my professor commented for 20 minute free write, the fact that I could write four pages was impressive.
I know I have that paper in the box with all my notes from college. Maybe one day I will look for it. But this one made me cry the most! I actually sobbed:
I’m surprised that I’m so emotional this year. But, with disease progression, I guess that’s not all that surprising…