The power of memory

I have only seen my mother truly cry a few times in my lifetime. But the thing that I remember most about 9-11-2000 is her voice. I was blissfully unaware of what was going on. Unusually the radio was not on. I picked up the phone and my Mother was sobbing. She, always one to talk on the phone, could only manage to get out two sentences.
“They’ve hit the world trade center. Turn on you television”
I turned on the television in time to see the second plane hit. I stood there in total shock; I couldn’t take it so I walked outside, down my front walk. I wondered how to reconcile the horror of what I had just witnessed with the beautiful sparkling sunshine, bright purple flowers against the sky, and the seeming normality of my home. I couldn’t. I was suddenly struck with the absolute silence of my usually boisterous neighborhood, even the birds were quiet.

I was supposed to teach that day, and was expected at the university. I got in the car turned over the ignition. The DJ on the radio was saying that there were 4 more planes in the air that were unaccounted for – would there be more horror? I remember the frantic fear for my Father, who I knew was traveling. I turned off the car and went back inside. My family was lucky, he was safe, and managed to rent a car to drive home from Ohio. It was the first time I, or many of my generation in this country could truly appreciate the horror of war, or more simply the starkness of terror.