Fifteen Years Later

Marking September 11th each year reminds me of seeing and understanding the day as a child and remembering it as an adult. Working at a high school the last few years, there's been a marking or remembrance of the anniversary each year. Last year, a few of the youngest high school students had been born that week. This year, many of the youngest students were born the following year. I remember my own middle and high school marking the anniversaries, particularly the second and third anniversaries and the moments of silence that accompanied them. I remember the tenth at college in Vermont and the eleventh through the eyes of British friends in the U.K. I've written down much of what I remember from that day, knowing that among my generation, if we live long lives, someday we'll be among the few with memories of the day. My memories aren't particularly exciting, I had been learning math that morning, nothing seemed amiss or different, and I learned after school that afternoon. Like most students, I didn't take the school bus home and was unusually picked up instead. I wish I could recall how beautiful of a day it was along the east coast as so many remember it to be. There are blurs in my memory that it was, but I don't recall it being thought of or noticed and I might just be remembering another day that year. I remember the class-wide discussions in the following days and weeks in my fourth grade classroom, how at that age, everyone had a story, a fact, something to share about a friend of a friend their parents knew. I visited New York with my family for the first time two years later in late spring and through the rain, I remember seeing the site and the tall pile of rubble that was still being processed. When I've visited New York in the last few years, the new One World Trade center has been so prominent and beautiful and seemingly at home on the skyline.