Never Forget

Normally my son is a calm person. But that day was different. He and his new bride were on their way to a delayed honeymoon on the morning of September 11, 2001. I was getting ready for work when he called on the verge of panic.

“Mom! We’re at Ontario Airport and they said we can’t get on a plane. All the planes are grounded, in the whole country. They said terrorists just crashed two jets into New York City.”

“Son, if what you’re telling me is true, we have bigger problems than your honeymoon. Let me turn on the TV and I’ll call you back.”

I went to work that day, like you did, in a state of horror. I needed the comfort of my coworkers. We worked in old downtown Riverside, California, near a church whose bells tolled every fifteen seconds for the entire day. Nobody could work. We all had our computers tuned to the news. Everyone was crying.

I often wonder how it changed my boy, and our kids’ generation, to be so young and impressionable and experience Nine Eleven. But it scarred me, too. To this day I can’t watch the Twin Towers go down. I picture every one of those bright-eyed, doomed young workers watching the floor shift and reaching for a coworker to cling to as the building began to tilt and sink. I can’t help but imagine they could have been my kids. I cry for their parents.

And I have mean thoughts and a long memory for every politician who tried to convert the grief of that horrible day into political capital.

Never forget.