story5973.xml

story5973.xml

born-digital

story

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no

2002-09-12

I awoke early on this morning as I needed to Chair my first PTA meeting at Thurston Middle School in Laguna Beach. I was the incoming PTA President. We held meetings every second Tuesday of each month. I had stayed up late to type the agenda the night before September 10th and that morning my printer was down so I was busy battleing that minor annoyance. My 7 th Grader son Sam was busy getting himself together and I got the brilliant idea that we would sit down with candles and silence ( no TV or radio ) and eat breakfast together.

Sam and I had no awareness that the world had gone mad around us. We sat and ate a peaceful breakfast and then we drove to the school and I remember feeling excited about my preparation for the upcoming meeting. Sam and I parted outside the office and I went in to use the copy machine only to be confronted by the secretary Erin, who looked stunned and scared, I remember I said," what has happened , is someone dead? " Erin looked at me and she was shocked at my response. She then said," you really don't know, a plane went into the WTC in New York."
I was horrified, I said " Was it an accident ? " Just then the school counselor came in and said there had been another plane in the other WTC and something about the Pentagon, I knew then that it was Arab terrorists. I had been in Europe during the years of IRA terror car bombings, the bombings of restaurants and the hijackings of various airlines in the 1970's and the Pan Am bombing over Lockerbie, Scotland...It was a revisit with terrible implications...I was devastated and I did not know how to proceed...It was my first experience at Chairing any meeting...I will always remember this because I came from creating a peaceful morning ritual into the gates of hell within an eleven minute ride into the school office...My normal mornings are hectic and the TV News is always on and the radio in the car gets me information as I drive...
I was both horrified and rendered powerless in the aftermath of that morning last year...

I came to America in 1976 to escape Bader Meinhoff, Black September, Red Brigade, Ira and numerous other terrorist organisations...only to have it all begin again in the year 2001. I had lost my father in November 2000 and I was still grieving the loss not yet a year old..

My firstborn son Adam had just left for school the week before and he was out hiking in the wilderness. The school told his group about the hijackings but not all the details and he called me upon his return a few days later devastated by the reality that they had not yet faced.

I drove up the next day to be with him as he was not only shocked but afraid about the prospect of war. He was and remains concerrned for his future and that of his generation...

I am currently still on the PTA, not as President, and today was the one year anniversary of 911,it was also the first meeting of the year. I am now the school's Librarian. I had a lot of feelings about this day and rememberance and I would like to add that "man lives by faith and hope and love, by the star on the horizon and by the trumpet that will not call retreat."( E. Merrill Root ). We can go on and live lives that are meaningful and we can remember those who perished with love and appreciation for their lives and remember that we are here to celebrate whatever time we have and after we have left, our friends, family and sometimes strangers remember our names and our faces...We are all part of a vast universe that will not support the violence that we reserve for each other. I simply cannot express the pain that I feel knowing how helpless we are to prevent human suffering and the desire to make others responsible and to cause great harm and further suffering. I think that I was so sure both my sons would be born and raised in America far away from the ravishes of war and destruction. September 11 changed that dream forever ...it was a 25 year hiatus..I am grateful to be alive nevertheless..I am forever changed by my experience that morning..