story7819.xml

story7819.xml

born-digital

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2002-09-17

Ironically, on September 10, I had been looking up airfares to Scotland because I planned, and still went, there in the summer of 2002. There is an email that says the price of an airfare, which I sent at 1 a.m., Sept. 11.

I went to bed and got up for my Modern Social Problems class at Georgetown College in Kentucky. It was 8:45, and normally my roommate would have had the television on. But of all days that week, she did not have it on. I also did not check my email that morning, which I normally do.

Outside I noticed how perfectly blue the sky was, and I thought it would be a great September day. When I got to my 9:30 class, the professor entered and immediately said, "I'm sure you all have heard about the planes crashing into the World Trade Center." We all looked at him in astonishment. He said that he didn't know a lot of details, but it looked like a terrorist attack, and that if we found bin Laden was behind it, America would seek justice.

All of the classrooms are supposed to have televisions, but ours did not. We went ahead with class as normal and got out at 10:45. On the way out several people told us that we were having a campus wide meeting upstairs from where my classroom was located, and also that classes were cancelled for the rest of the day.

Before I went there, I went across the hall and called my mom, who lives about an hour away from me. She told me that the towers had collapsed, and that a plane crashed into the Pentagon and in Pennsylvania. "It looks like an all-out terrorist attack!" she said.

At the campus wide meeting, we listened to updated news and prayed for our nation. A newscaster from the nearby city of Lexington was there anyway to give a talk on women in the media industry, but, of course, that is not what she talked about. There was a question and answer session afterward. I remember how one of our college's main administrators talked about how he hoped we would not lash out at Arab-Americans. It was especially moving because he is Lebanese-American. I also remember students and faculty alike asking questions about war, martial law, the draft (two male students asked about it), casualities, culprits, etc.

We adjourned and I went to lunch. My friends and I said we didn't feel like eating, but we knew we had to. I remember a student in front of me on her cell phone who was trying to get in touch with her family and was sobbing. I also remember how a big-screen television was brought into the cafeteria and everyone was watching it. The TV stayed there until January. I went back to my room and watched TV. I didn't call my family much because the local news said to stay off the phone lines.

We met as a campus again at that afternoon for more prayer and discussion. Then, I went to a campus prayer vigil at 6 and one at my church at 7. I didn't sleep well that night. The next week it was hard to concentrate on my school work because I was always looking at the news on television and on the internet. As a Christian, I have faith in God, but it doesn't always mean it is easy.

My heart went out, and it still does, for those who lost loved ones in this tragedy. Luckily, my family does not know anyone who lost their lives that day. We do know someone who was less than a mile away from the Towers, and we do know a woman whose son escaped from the WTC.

We had a new tradition of painting white benches in front of each of the dorms on campus. Soon after the attacks, we painted those benches with a patriotic theme. In front of my dorm, we had a bench with the NYPD logo on it. Others painted flags, and one painted the New York skyline with the words to a Christian praise chorus- "The day is dawning and I am just rising/I pray my hope won't fail, my hope." This particular bench was turned into a memorial in front of one of the classroom buildings.

The date of 9/11 touched all American lives and calls all of us to not take anything for granted. The first year anniversary has come and gone, but there still is a long road to travel. I am now pursuing my graduate education in Library and Information Science. But I will always think back to that horrible day when, as a senior in college, I watched our nation change. May we grow stronger through our struggles, and may we learn that we can turn back to God, who never will change.