story10761.xml

story10761.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2004-08-21

I had to teach that morning. My new class started at 10:15. But I only lived two miles away, so I never rushed out the door. Taking the time to feed my eight month old son and dress my twenty month old daughter, I was lamenting having to go to work at all. I just wanted to stay home with my children.

That morning, I was reflecting on the previous September: my friend had passed away from breast cancer over that summer and after four long years of infertility, my husband and I had given up and decided to adopt. One year later, I was a mother of two and still mourning Linda's death as I emotionally prepared myself for the upcoming fifteenth anniversary of my father's death. Linda's passing had stirred the grief process for my father as did motherhood. I was consumed with the reality of the frailty of life and not focused on much else.

The phone rang. Checking caller ID I saw that it was my sister from Florida. "That's odd, I thought to myself, "Something must be wrong because Christine never calls during the day." A breathless voice was on the other line when I picked up.
"Jen, turn on the TV."
"What chanel?"
"It doesn't matter, any chanel... it'll be on every major chanel."
I put down my son he began to cry for his unfinished bottle and turned on the TV. Seeing the WTC on fire, I thought I was watching some movie, so I changed to another chanel and it was the same thing. "What's going on?" I said into the phone.
"We've been attacked." Attacked? The words were foreign. The HBO movie BAND OF BROTHERS had just started that Sunday and my husband and I had discussed how our generation had never seen a major war. So when she said attacked, it just didn't make sense. "What do you mean?"
"Someone flew a plane into the WTC"
"On purpose?"
"I don't know. There's no TV here at work, I only heard it on the radio. Can you keep ME posted?"
"Sure." I said as I absentmindedly hung up the phone, my eyes still on the TV. Tower two was being hit. Dazed, I picked up my son to give him the rest of his bottle. I watched Tower two go down in disbelief. My mom called. My other sisters called. I called Christine back. I wrote down all the events as they unfolded before my eyes. People were screaming, jumping out of windows and I sat in my chair, powerless to help. Just watching like a zombie.

I still had to go to class. My students had no idea of what was going on so my headmaster met me at the door of my classroom and asked me to fill them in. Classes for the rest of the day would be cancelled.

I looked at the faces of my new class. Fourteen and fifteen year old students, anxious to start a new school year. Taking a deep breath, I told them all I new. Tower one had not gone down yet. Tower two was a pile of rubble. The pentagon was hit. A plane went down in Pennsylvania. The president was enroute on Air Force One and Cheney was sent somewhere else. We discussed the meaning of life. Suddenly the subject of biology seemed insignificant.

I didn't cry until two weeks later, on the anniversary of my father's death. Having grown up in Jersey, just outside Newark, my father would take us to the city often. And oh how he loved those towers. "An engineering marvel. I watched them be built" he'd say. I cried for the two men that I knew that lost their lives that day and their families. I cried for the memory of my father and of Linda. I cried because life just doesn't make sense. I cried because I finally had two small children and that they would one day say to me, "Mom, where were you when the towers went down?"

And I knew what I'd say, "Holding you in my arms, cherishing your life and loving the precious moments that I have with you."