There is a moment, a day, in September, when the light changes. The sun crosses the sky at a lower angle, the shadows are longer, the afternoon feels later than it actually is. These are the signs that fall is creeping towards us, ready to sit at our table very soon. Everything is a little more golden, a little less brilliantly outlined, a little softer, more shadowed. This change affects me. Today, it feels like a nation of change. Ten years ago violence against our nation struck all of us. Each one of us has a story of where we were, who we were with, and where our family members were at that moment we found out about the planes. Every one of us has a story of how we have changed, how our lives have changed because of this experience. All of us felt the horror, the heartbreak, to our core, and all of us remember how we came together as a nation afterwards.
I did not listen to the radio that morning, so when I walked into my classroom and found my partner teacher on her cell phone, asking anxiously if the person on the other end of the phone had heard from his daughter yet, the urgency and grief on her face made me think that someone in their family had died. She looked at me incredulously and said, "You haven't heard?" Every day since then, and I mean every single one no matter where I am or what I am doing, I wake to or turn on the radio to listen to the news.
The light signals passing time. A new season approaches. The tears still come when I see the images and faces of the tragedy of 9/11/01. I don't think the passage of time will ever change that. Where were you? What did you do? Please share this post and respond. Sharing experiences is a privilege and one of our most important human experiences.
