Remembering September 2001

Taken days before the September 11 attacks...Hubby said we had to get a picture with the WTC in the background

Lady Liberty looks on at the WTC towers


In awe of her...it took me a few tries to get her in full view, and a few cameras, too.

My country 'tis of thee, sweet land of Liberty

I gave Hubby a hard time when we planned this trip to NYC since it was so close to the start of the school year. We got back two days before school started. I was teaching third grade in Fairfax County, at a school eleven miles south of the Pentagon. I am so glad we went to NYC that weekend. This was the last time I would ever see the WTC towers standing. The skies were so clear. It was unthinkable what would happen just a week later.

Sept. 10 I met 2 friends from Bible study for dinner at Generous George. All of our husbands were out of town. I told my friends that I had a hard time getting to bed when Hubby traveled. I told them I just had this uneasy feeling about the next day. I know I don't have any type of clairvoyance, and the feeling was coincidental. But it is still eery to me that I felt that way the night before.

The next morning I woke up in a hurry for school. I popped on the TV for some company to the Today show. Katie Couric was commenting on the absolutely beautiful weather, and the show panned to a skyline of NYC. I absentmindedly looked up and thought to myself, yeah, that is a pretty blue skyline, for NYC. Shortly thereafter, I hopped in my Pathfinder. I drove up Beulah Road to school. At the stoplight I looked up, and thought, man, the sky really is super blue today.

Sometime in the 10am hour the door to my classroom opened. The school counselor was red eyed, and motioned me into the hall. Oh no. Something is terribly wrong. Someone has died. My stomach turned. I know she told me about the first 3 planes. But I barely heard her. Is there someone you need to call? Somehow I know she asked me about Hubby,....and I remember mumbling something about him being out of town. Many of our friends in DC, working, and going to school..., my mind raced and raced. She said something about not being sure if the attacks were over. No school buses will.....students will need to stay in school until......there will be no recess or leaving the building....we aren't telling the students until we know for sure.....please don't turn on your television in class....Mrs. Farmer? Please take a few minutes....I'll watch your class. I left the class and walked down the hall. Teary eyed staff members...uncertainty and tension to the left and right of me. I must be ok. I wasn't the only one feeling it. But I was shocked. I returned to my classroom, and counted down the minutes til lunch time, when I could find out the latest in the teacher lunch room or in the office. And then the news that a fourth plane was down...

I picked up my class in the cafeteria. Some of my students were crying. Mrs. Farmer...it is true? Is it true about the planes? Is it true DC was bombed? Is it on fire? What about my mommy? What about my daddy? I want to go home! I held out my arms to them and quieted them enough to say we would talk about this in our classroom. How could they know already? Soon, I found out that they had been at lunch with the fifth graders. Their field trip had been cancelled, and they heard over the bus radio about the planes. And at lunch they told my third graders what they thought happened. I called the office.

I need a counselor in my room for my students. They know...

Well, they are all busy with the the fifth graders since...

Those fifth graders told my third graders that DC has been bombed and on fire and I have students crying, here.

Oh!!!...Someone will be there in a minute, just a minute.

All of the DC area shut down. And most kids' parents worked in the city or just outside of the city. Children were dismissed left and right. Parents picked them up as soon as they could. It was a mass exodous out of a school with over 1,000 children. Mrs. Farmer, is my mommy ok? Why hasn't she picked me up yet? I want to go home, too!!

Finally the day came to a close. And the next day the school district cancelled school. I sat and watched too much TV, and relived the events happen over and over. Our church held a service on the 12th. The house was packed, and we honored local firefighters and police officers, as well as military members. We remembered, we cried, and we prayed. We prayed for those families from our church that still had loved ones missing, and those that had been burned, and those that did not want to return to work.

The 13th school was in session. And I wasn't the only one that watched far too much news coverage. It was all the kids talked about. Some were afraid to be back. Some were afraid that it would happen again today. Some were queit and reserved. Others just wanted to talk and talk. Many wanted hugs all day. And others prayed during the moment of silence that is a daily observance in Virginia public schools.

Eventually the newness and the rawness of the September 11 attacks started to fade. But the students did not forget. That year, students drew family pictures with planes falling out of the sky or under fire. Machine guns and gunfire were present in drawings about animal kingdoms, or the ancient civilizations we studied. Those planes were in journals, and everywhere else they could doodle. They were forever impressed that their country, their immediate surroundings, had come under attack.

And I could write more, about how my students made a memorial for Veteran's Day that resembled the Vietnam War Memorial, with the names of all of the lives lost at the Pentagon, or what it first felt like to walk through Reagan airport with service members wearing M16s, or through the Smithsonian museums with armed securtiy guards. And more and more about how our lives were forever changed....even up until I left the area in 2005. But when I remember 9-11 I most remember those children in my classroom, and the moments we shared together that year and the absolute fear those students knew. That was real. And I remember that beautiful blue skyline. And I know Lady Liberty still stands, and she still looks on.