Where Were You?

Shortly after my oldest child started high school, I was driving her to her early morning class. There's a 6:45 religion class available just off campus for members of our church. Despite the early hour, she was excited about the chance to go.

When we were about a block and a half away from the church, something odd came on the news. Normally, at that hour, it's traffic news and humor items. Unexpectedly, the dj reported a plane crash in Washington DC. "A plane has crashed into the side of the Pentagon," the voice said. "There is a fire. Reports are sketchy, but we'll bring you updates as we receive them." He didn't sound too upset or concerned. He said something vague about another crash in New York, promising, "We'll share details as we get them."

"Poor pilot," I thought. I was picturing a little private plane, flown by an amateur who became disoriented and crashed.

The date was September 11, 2001.

I dropped my daughter off and started the 5 to 10 minute drive home. The news report repeated one more time before I got there. They had no new information, but sounded a bit more worried this time. I hoped no one had been seriously hurt, knowing that the pilot probably was.

With 3 children in 3 different schools, and a preschooler still at home, I had a routine. About the time I returned from dropping off my oldest, my 8^th grader would get up and eat. As she was getting ready to go, my first grader and my two year old would get up. We'd all drive Big Sister to school, then return to finish eating and get my 6 year old ready. After we dropped him off, my youngest would watch TV while I showered and got dressed. (Yes, I drove the big kids while in my jammies.) The TV was always off until the big kids were at school – otherwise, they'd never get ready. I called my husband every day after the last school drop off; unless there was an emergency, I wouldn't be on the phone during our carefully choreographed morning.

I was surprised when the phone rang, just after I got home. It was my husband, sounding terse and cryptic. "Turn on the TV," he said.

"Why?"

"Just turn it on."

I hate mysteriousness. "Is this about the plane that crashed into the Pentagon? I heard already."

"Yes and no. Just turn on the TV."

"What channel?"

"It doesn't matter. I'll call you back."

I don't remember what channel I turned on; I don't remember if it was satellite or network. I remember the image of the smoking New York skyscraper, and the baffled voice of the announcer.

Two plane crashes? In one day? What were the odds? I was still thinking of small, private planes; I was still imagining malfunctions. Those poor pilots, I thought. Words started to penetrate my brain, words like "airliner" and "sabotage" and "hijack."

Hijacked planes? I imagined displaced passengers and crew being shooed off the planes before the hijackers took it from the airport. Was the one in Washington DC hijacked? Who would do such a thing? Where had they taken the planes from?

I left the room to make sure my second oldest was up and getting ready. The constant replays made things seem as if they were happening in front of me, even when they weren't. It was now about 10 a.m. on the east coast. As I came back to the family room, the announcer was saying something like, "I can't believe it! I just can't believe it!" Both towers of the World Trade Center were now on fire. "Let's see that from a different angle," the newscaster said. The replay began, and a plane came into view, a huge jetliner. It was flying low, below the roof of the towers. It disappeared behind the building, and just as I expected to see it emerge on the other side, a ball of flame erupted from the tower. They showed the replay over and over, and each time I felt just a second too long had passed, we'd see the plane at any moment, and the fireball burst through. Every now and then, they'd say, "We have footage taken from (another vantage point)," and that film would play.

That third plane changed everything. I couldn't hang on to the idea of separate accidents. It was deliberate. Someone meant to do this. Why?

I could not imagine that the plane was full, that any of them contained more than one or two people. I was sure that, at any moment, the news would cut to befuddled passengers on a tarmac saying, "They just forced us out. I don't know what they wanted." The planes simply had to be empty. The buildings, God help us, had people in them, but surely not the planes…

My 13 year old poked her head out into the family room, wondering why I had the TV on – it flew in the face of our routine. I made sure she ate and brushed her teeth – she's not big on breakfast, but I always insisted – and then called her out to the TV. "They'll be talking about this at school today; you'll need to know what happened."

Watching the first tower fall was shocking. How was it even possible that it could collapse? By the time the second tower fell, I couldn't process any further horror. It was overload.

I turned off the TV before my younger kids could see the images of smoke, destruction, papers and dust raining on Manhattan. I told my 6 year old what had happened in the simplest terms. He wanted to know how many people were hurt, and I told him that nobody knew yet, but we'd find out later.

News that a fourth plane had gone down in Pennsylvania seemed both inevitable and terrifying. All over the nation, planes were grounded; we wondered how many more would bring chaos and death.

I kept the television off, or safely on Sesame Street or Dora the Explorer, when my 2 year old was awake. When she napped, I watched more TV. I now knew that the planes had been full, all of them, and I tried to imagine a reality in which such things happened. I simply could not wrap my head around a mindset that would believe this was OK. I cried. I mourned. I heard the name of Osama Bin Laden for the first time. I learned that the plane in Pennsylvania had been kept from hitting its target by passengers. (They are still some of my heroes today.)

My children barely remember, if they remember at all, the world before planes were used as weapons, before it became commonplace to assume that terrorists can and will take hundreds of lives at once – not in a war zone, but in a country at peace, on an ordinary morning, because they disagree with our religion and our government.

I still remember keenly staring at the screen and thinking, "They have to be empty… don't they?"