"something very bad has happened"

On September 11, 2001, I was a fourth grader. I had never been to New York. I didn't know what the Twin Towers were. I didn't know there was such a thing as terrorists.

My teachers didn't tell us anything at school, and I didn't know anything had happened until my mom picked us up. She turned around (I got back seat on the way home) and looked at me and my brother (who was in front) and told us "something very bad has happened."She told us that planes had crashed into towers in New York City, that many people had died, and that this could mean that the United States would fight back. There were bad guys involved. We got home and my dad was watching the TV, and I saw the planes and the towers and the smoke, but it was unreal to me. I felt nothing. I was eleven, and I didn't know anything about the world outside of Tyler, Texas.

I distinctly remember saying the pledge the next day in class, and kids were more passionate than usual when we got to "one nation, under God..." But I still didn't really know what had happened. How could I? Bad guys were things that were in books and movies, and disasters were things that happened far away from my sphere of knowledge. I was fine, the world was fine.

I don't remember how many weeks or months or years it took for me to feel the gravity. I remember having dreams; that I had to run down an infinity of stairs before a tower collapsed on me. I remember feeling hot. I would wake up and the feelings would go away. A few years later, for one or another tribute show, I saw pictures of people jumping from their windows. Then my dreams were of falling fast. What did it feel like, to hit the ground? I would wake up and pray that God would let me die before I felt the pain.

Two and a half years ago, I went to New York City for the first time. The electricity was instantly addictive. I fell in love. My uncle took us to Ground Zero, and for the first time, I realized 9/11 had happened. That it wasn't just my dreams, or finding out that bad guys in real life did things worse than robbing banks or starting forest fires. And then my family went back, just a little less than a year ago. We went to the memorial.

The fountains falls down like lightning into black holes. The surface of the water is constantly moving. At one point my mother leaned over but then stood back up, and said it looked like faces were bobbing. It was hard to not see them, after reading all of their names. It was quiet, except for the water. Everyone is looking into those pits. They are so deep that it feels like falling just to look into them.

I will never know the pain of the family members that lost loved ones that day. I might rely on pictures and dreams to tell me what it felt like. But I am an American, and through that bond, I know what it means to be injured. I just thank God that we, as a nation, are brave enough to stand, and jump into the unknown, even when there is no guarantee that we will land painlessly. 

I pray that I will always be that brave.