Twenty Years

September Writing Challenge - Prompt # 2:

Anniversary

I've been blogging for 16 years, and I've never really written anything about 9/11. Today, it's been twenty years! Twenty! I can't believe I'm old enough to throw around phrases like "twenty years ago." 

On September 11, 2001, here's what was going on in my life:

-I was 17 - a senior in high school.

-I was on the dance team.

-My boyfriend (now husband) was one year into serving his mission in South Carolina (interesting fact: he flew to South Carolina on September 11, 2000. The airport procedures were very different then).

-I worked at a donut shop.

On that Tuesday morning, I had dance practice at 6:00. Near the end of practice, somehow we learned of the first plane hitting the World Trade Center (it happened at 6:45 our time). At that point we just thought it was a plane crash. There wasn’t a lot of information yet - it was so fresh. But then the second plane hit right before school started. 

In my first period “foods” class, we sat glued to the TV the entire time. All conversations were abuzz with speculation about what was going on.

My next class was seminary. My teacher, Brother Taylor, was prepared to receive his fearful, questioning students. He met us with words of comfort and love, then he had our class kneel together and pray for the people in the towers, for the firefighters, and for our country. He shared some thoughts about angels who watch over our nation, and then he turned some time over to us to bear our testimonies. 

Throughout the day, numerous students were checked out of school, so I called my mom (I was one of very few students with a cell phone) and asked her if she’d call the school and check me out, too. People left the school without consequence. There was no expectation for a normal day.  

Back then, missionaries weren’t allowed to call home, and they especially weren’t allowed to call their girlfriends. Scotty called that day.

A page from Scotty's mission scrapbook

On September 11, and during the immediate weeks afterward, I felt things I’d never felt before, but I didn’t truly understand what had happened. I didn’t really know what the World Trade Center was or why it would be a target for terrorism. "Terrorist attack" wasn't familiar vernacular to me, and I’d never even heard the phrase “twin towers.” I had no idea how big they really were or how many people came in and out of those buildings everyday. There were so many things my young mind didn’t comprehend about the magnitude of this event. 

A couple of years later - when I was married - I was watching a documentary about 9/11, and I saw footage of people jumping from the towers. I knew people had jumped, but I hadn't seen any of it. As I watched the people fall, I had to sit down. Then after a moment, I had to turn off the TV. To see what I hadn't seen in 2001 gave me pause, and that's when I realized how little I really understood about 9/11 when it happened. 

Now that it's been twenty years, what do I write? I have nothing. There's nothing I can say that properly memorializes the nearly 3,000 people who died. There's nothing I can say to make up for my ignorance at the time, and there's nothing I can say to make up for the ignorance I still have. 

There is so much I don't know about conflict between nations. There are so many types of suffering I've never experienced first-hand. September 11, 2001 showed me some of the greatest darknesses humans are capable of. And yet, I was still protected enough and distant enough to not truly have to see. After twenty years, I remain there - partly with gratitude, and partly with guilt. 

On the 20th anniversary of the attacks of September 11th, my words fall short. They always will. 

But I do remember.