Where were you on September 11, 2001?

It's one of those pivotal events in world history. That moment where, again, the world is turned upside down. Assumptions you had of your world are shaken and you don't quite know what to do. That was September 11th for me. And to this day, I still think it had a major effect on my parents and led to the events that occurred less than 2 years later.

I do remember that day though. I was a resident assistant at the time at the local Catholic university. I had been on rounds the night before and the last set of rounds are at midnight so by the time I got to bed it was pretty late. I was running a little late turning in my pager and the on-call binder so I was rushing. I had an appointment later that morning and needed to get ready. I remember hearing the radio when I came in and putting away the pager and binder. I'm just about to leave when the head of residence life stopped me. He asked if I heard that two planes had been hijacked and flown into the World Trade Center. Now, color me a tad clueless because I didn't know exactly what buildings those were but I knew it was a huge deal and the first thought that crossed my head was to call my mom.

I rushed back to my room which was on the fifth floor of the adjoining building. I tried to call my mom (back then, it was still good old landline telephones on the wall with cords) but didn't reach her. I called John, told him to turn on the TV. I called my mom again. This time she answered. I told her what happened and her response was, "What?" in her typical fashion. She did eventually either get the TV on or the radio going and got the news. I still had my appointment so I got ready as did she since she was taking me to my appointment. She picked me up a short time later and we sit in the car and listen to the news on the way to my appointment.

Later, we're back on campus and she's having lunch with me. The large TV in the student union is playing scenes of the towers' collapse over and over. Students are quiet, not boisterously loud as they usually are. It was surreal and I remember sitting with my mom eating lunch and her commenting that it reminded her of when John F. Kennedy was killed. She was a senior in high school at the time.

Another thing I remember that day is how blue and clear the sky was. It was a beautiful September day and any days like that now reminds me of the tragedy. It's hard to believe that it's been 19 years now. My oldest daughter obviously was not yet around, would be another 4 years before she would be born. And they've learned about it, heard about it of course but it's a story to them. In fact, we were watching an episode of Criminal Minds that was on something regarding biological chemical warfare and anthrax was mentioned. I happened to say I remember when all of that went down in 2001. And Natalie looks at me and was just astounded. She thought it was just something made up on a show. No, it was very much real but for these kids, it's just a part of history.

And now, they're living in their own history in the making with Covid-19. All of these stories, all of these things that happen in our lifetimes that become part of the history of the world, but really when it comes down to it, outside of those events, life moves on, people move on, and the world continues.