September 11, 2001: I was in the fourth grade. We were preparing to watch a movie. My teacher turned on the television and as all the televisions were pre-programmed to be on ABC. Footage was playing. Boom. A plane crashed into the the second Twin Tower. Smoke and rubble started pouring into the streets of New York City. Then the classroom chaos commenced, bursting with panic and nervous-chatter. Nobody in that classroom full of nine and ten year olds really understood what was going on. We wouldn't understand fully until those images were replayed hour after hour for the next several days. And the clips would make us remember this day for the rest of our lives.
March 2012: I went to New York City. I visited the site where those Twin Towers once stood. I read the names and ran my fingers over the lives lost, committed, and reunited side by side in bronze-plated engravings. I finally felt what it meant to be an American. To truly understand our freedoms and our blessings.
September 11, 2013: I stood in a classroom with 24 fifth graders as we listened to the morning announcements. The principal so eloquently explained what happened to our country twelve years ago. My entire class of fifth graders I was with today weren't even born when this happened. It's a memory for me and a history lesson for my students.
Time marches on, but the memory of seeing those towers fall, the turmoil that transpired and the struggles that our nation still goes through today, is remembered twelve years later. We will never forget. May God continue to bless and protect our nation.
United we stand...
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