story4133.xml

story4133.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2002-09-11

An unshakeable, nauseating pain across my belly is my lingering memory from September 11. It is the same vast ache I endure each time someone reports tragic news, such as my grandfather?s death of heart disease in the spring of 2001. A telephone call that Tuesday morning, September 11, caused much internal tension as events occurred that would have significant impacts on me both personally and professionally.
The school day had just gotten underway when the phone in my junior high classroom rang. It was my husband. ?Turn on the news,? he said. ?A plane just crashed into the World Trade Tower.?
As I announced the news to my eighth grade American History students, I flipped through the channels in search of CNN. We located the channel about the same time the second airliner hit. The class was uncharacteristically quiet as we viewed the horrifying images. Then the questions started to fly.
?Who would do this??
?Why did they do it??
Almost immediately the media insinuated the responsible parties were Islamic fundamentalists. I felt a fissure of anger at this suggestion. Remember the Oklahoma City bombing? Who was the first to receive blame? Fingers initially pointed at Muslim radicals, while in fact, the culprit was our own homegrown Timothy McVeigh. Who could say with any certainty at 8:15 a.m. CST on September 11 who the perpetrators were? I made this point throughout the day as we continued watching the television coverage during classes.
Near the end of the first class period, a student exclaimed, ?Isn?t that the Pentagon?? With my attention diverted elsewhere, I blew off the remark, thinking some politico was issuing a statement from Washington. Imagine my horror when my second hour class was seated and we viewed additional coverage of the Pentagon collision.
It was during this class that the plane crashed in western Pennsylvania. A student questioned the terrorists? objective. Before the details were made public, we took down a U.S. map and pondered if Pittsburgh was the intended target. No one had a theory for the purpose of striking Pittsburgh, but I began to wonder if airliners would continue going down in a western march across the country. Would they hit St. Louis? Kansas City? Or would they be interested in plowing into a school or University building, hurting all those inside and pedestrians on their way to their next class?
Motherly concern kicked in at that point. I felt a desperate need to dash from my classroom and pull my three-year-old out of preschool. Maybe she would be in less danger at home. There would be little incentive to smash a residence, right? The belly pain I felt on this scary day intensified every time I faced the reality that I could not be with my daughter, to answer her questions, and to reassure her of our safety.
As the day wore on for my students, the shock of the morning?s events began to dissipate. Rumors began to fly ? ?We get to go home early? was a favorite. When the last two classes arrived I heard, ?Do we have to watch this again?? in response to the television tuned in to the news network. I attempted to respond to any questions students had, and then we progressed with the day?s intended lesson during the remaining class time. We left the television on, muted, with the directive that if anyone saw anything potentially new on the screen, we would turn up the volume.
Although by the end of the school day, it appeared that most of my students were dealing acceptably with the tragedies, I did not have their sense of calmness. Instead of staying at school until my normal ending time of 5:00 p.m., I rushed to leave as soon as possible after the last bell rang. I hoped to find my daughter whole and happy. Unlike many others that fateful day, I did.