I woke up like everyone else that morning, but my mom and I were running late for school so we didn’t bother to turn the TV on to watch the news. We pulled up in front of my friend Graham’s house to pick him up for carpool, but his mom ran out, bawling. She told us there was a terrorist attack in New York, but she was too hysteric to tell us in any detail what had happened. I assumed that maybe there had been a kidnapping, and that someone was demanding some sort of ransom or else people would get hurt. On the way to school that idea started to break my heart.
Our school counselor came in to talk the 5th grade class (there were 44 of us) about everything that had already happened. We sat in Mrs. Fleming’s room and Mr. Knippenberg told us about the planes, the passengers, the towers, and the jumpers. I honestly didn’t know how to react, I was 11, how are you supposed to feel when you hear that people are throwing themselves from burning buildings hundreds of feet from the ground? Everything I’d assumed earlier was a worst-case scenario in my mind, and yet it was worse still. I understand that some of you reacted differently, but I didn’t know how, I didn’t understand how any of it was real. I didn’t understand how people could be that willing to end their lives and the lives of others. I just didn’t understand, and I still don’t. That lack of understanding make me angrier than I can ever remember being. I went home that day and yelled at the TV set until I couldn’t take any more. I hated them, I didn’t even know who I was hating, I just hated, and hated, and hated. After Mr. Knippenberg was done, we went back to our teacher Mr. Lane’s classroom, and all I remember is him sitting in there, bleary-eyed and blank.
Mr. Lane’s best friend worked in the towers, and no one had heard from him since the attacks. He told us about growing up in New York in the 70’s when the WTC was built, watching it get taller year after year until it was done. That day, he saw it all come down in a cloud of dust, after just a few hours, with his closest friend inside. I’ve never understood Mr. Lane’s reaction until now. Despite losing everything he did, he not once spoke in anger of any of it. He was sad, and he was broken, but never resentful.
The men who flew the planes into the towers wanted to die for their God, but I want to live for mine. I want to take everything they’ve destroyed and simply rebuild. I don’t want to take what revenge we think we’re owed, I don’t want to destroy in the name of my God to show that He is more powerful. I want to prove His limitless power by walking away from hate, from the idea of retribution. I want to heal what’s been broken, and I want to heal the wounds of the injured and the enemy alike. I want to show how God truly loves.
