nmah5541.xml

nmah5541.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2003-06-09

I view September 11th as the day that I became an adult. At the time I was a 23 year old high school teacher in Boston. While my students quietly complained and talked during homeroom period, the headmaster's voice boomed over the intercom. The announcement silenced the school. My stomach dropped. A good friend from college worked at the pentagon and I had several close friends in the military. My first thought was, "there is no way I walked away from this without loosing anyone." However, being the leader of the classroom, I had little time to think of myself. My students were frightened because there was still one plane in the air and they were very concious of the fact that Boston could be a target. Furthermore, several of my students had parents on flights out of Logan that day. Honestly, I don't remember much else about those 48 hours except for the overwhelming silence. Somewhere in those seconds of quiet I left my childhood behind.

A year after 9/11 I met a very close friend, Danielle, in graduate school. After several months of friendship, I learned that she had been working blocks from the WTC. She explained running from the buildings in silent tears. Over the course of the year I saw her fear when cars were slightly to loud...or the bus ride lasted a bit longer than normal. Her reserve and strength is remarkable. The terror of 9/11 hit me one day when I realized how different my life would be if I had never met her.

I will never forget that the traffic of Boston didn't seem to exist on my ride home from work. No one honked their horns. No one cut me off. Their was a incredible sense of unity as people quietly cried as they listened to the radio.