Twenty-five years have passed.
How can that possibly be?
September 11, 2001, feels like a lifetime ago. And yet, when I allow myself to go back there, I can remember that morning as though it happened yesterday.
I was teaching third grade.
In those days, I had a habit of getting to school ridiculously early. It was my favorite time of the day. The halls were quiet. My classroom was peaceful. And, most importantly, all the other teachers were still sleeping and the copier was mine. Teachers will understand.
I had a thirty-minute drive to work, and my morning routine included stopping at Klein’s Truck Stop for my first Diet Coke of the day.
Mohammed was working behind the counter. He was a super guy.
That morning, he was watching the television.
He mentioned that something had happened in New York. There had apparently been an accident. Something about a small plane crashing into a building. Thank goodness there was an entire country between New York City and me.
I thanked him, picked up my Diet Coke, and continued on to school.
By the time I reached my classroom and turned on the television, the world had changed.
Once and for all.
Suddenly, New York didn’t feel quite so far away.
Both of my boys were in the United States Air Force.
That very morning, one of my sons and his new wife left their base in New Jersey for a new assignment in California. My other son was stationed in England, serving as a linguist.
Two sons were serving our country while our country was now under attack.
And I was their mother.
But in a little while, twenty third graders would walk through my classroom door.
And I was their teacher.
By the time twenty littles pulled out their chairs that morning, they already understood something was different.
Children always know.
They had seen teachers crying.
They had seen worried, strained faces on adults who normally greeted them with smiles.
Some of their classmates’ chairs were empty because those children had stayed home with Mom.
Our principal’s eyes were red.
The janitor was talking with his family in Mexico.
Everywhere these children looked, the grown-ups were behaving differently.
Something had happened.
Something terrible.
And they needed us to help them understand it.
Should little children know about these things?
Absolutely.
Not every horrible detail. Not images that will haunt them.
But the truth?
Yes.
Children know when adults are frightened. Pretending nothing has happened doesn’t make them feel safer.
So we talked.
And throughout that day, we wrote and drew our hearts out.
We wrote letters to nurses, doctors, firefighters, New York City Police officers. Heroes we didn’t even know. People we would never meet.
Those who could write, wrote. Those who couldn’t find the words, drew pictures.
After finding it on our classroom map, we talked about New York.
Should my third graders have had a geography lesson during math about the distance between Madera, California, and New York City?
That day, they had to. They needed to understand where this was happening. They needed to understand that something could happen thousands of miles away and still matter to us.
And when somebody needed a hug, we hugged.
That day, something happened in Room 20.
Twenty little children and one scared teacher became a classroom of love.
And somehow, we remained knitted together that way for the rest of the school year.
Twenty-five years later, those third graders are adults now, with lives of their own. Some may have children in elementary school like they were on September 11, 2001.
I wonder what they remember. Do they remember Room 20? Do they remember the letters and drawings? Do they remember the adults crying? Do they remember looking at a map and discovering just how far away New York City was? Do they remember their young, frightened teacher trying to comfort them?
I hope they remember something else. I hope they remember that they comforted me, too.
Those children taught me something that day. When the world becomes frightening, we don’t have to understand everything before we can do something good. We can write a letter. Draw a picture. Hold someone’s hand. Say a prayer. Offer a hug.
We can be kind.
There is one number I still see regularly here in Nevada.
343.
On the backs of firetrucks in my little town are the words:
Stay Back 343 Feet.
It is a tribute to the 343 members of the New York City Fire Department who died on September 11.
Twenty-five years later, that number still travels down the streets of my little Nevada town.
I love that.
Because 343 isn’t simply a number. They were firefighters. They were people. They were sons and daughters, husbands and fathers, brothers and friends.
While thousands of others also lost their lives that day, those three numbers have become one small way of saying:
We remember.
Twenty-five years have passed.
There are now adults who weren’t alive when the towers fell. There are children for whom September 11 is something in a history lesson rather than a memory.
That’s why those of us who remember need to keep remembering. Remember every one of the fallen. Regular people who simply went to work that beautiful September morning and never came home.
And remember the extraordinary bravery, heroism, and kindness that appeared in the middle of something so terrible.
Today, do something kind.
Something real.
Watch some of the footage from that day.
Learn about someone who was there.
Listen to the stories.
Sing along with Come From Away and remember the people of Gander who opened their homes and their hearts to strangers.
Tell a child what happened. And then tell that child about the helpers.
Twenty-five years ago, twenty little third graders in Room 20 taught their teacher how people respond when the world suddenly becomes frightening.
They loved.
They helped.
They comforted.
They cared about people they had never met.
Twenty-five years later, I can only pray that some of that kindness remains in their hearts.
It certainly remains in mine.
Twenty-five years have passed.
How can that possibly be?
September 11, 2001, feels like a lifetime ago. And yet, when I allow myself to go back there, I can remember that morning as though it happened yesterday.