Where I was on September 11th

(Artwork: Bill Bell)

Sixteen years ago on Tuesday September 11th I was substitute teaching a 7th Grade History class at my old junior high school. (In Pearland, Texas. I think it was my old English classroom actually). It was a very busy, strange and sad day.

As the students began entering the classroom for another class period – 2nd period I believe, but possibly 3rd - one boy turned on the tv and told me a plane crashed into the WTC. He said it was terrorists. Because of how animated he was – as if he had just seen an action adventure at the movie theater – I figured he was over exaggerating. This was junior high after all.

On the tv I saw that the tower was indeed on fire. Surely this was some freak accident and not a terror attack? I wasn’t comfortable having the television on. I didn’t think it was appropriate, and I knew the students would never get their assignments done – of which there were many - if the tv was on.

After the bell rang I turned it off. I had NO IDEA how serious it really was until my lunch break.

During lunch I went to the front office to get a coke out of the machine in the teacher’s lounge. The office was very, very busy. EXTREMELY busy and like nothing I’d seen before. The classroom I was in for that day wasn’t far from the front office. It was just a few doors down, and in just the few classrooms that I walked past I noticed that every single one of them had their television sets on.

When I turned on the tv in the classroom that I was in for the day, that’s when I learned what had transpired. I was SHOCKED.

Parents were pulling their children out of school all day since the district wouldn’t cancel school. (When I got home my own mother said she almost came and got me! I think that alone proves the protective nature of a good mother. It doesn’t matter what age you are. No matter your age, a mother's first instinct will always be wanting their child safe and protected). Every 5 - 10 minutes there would be another student being sent home. That happened all day long. Literally every 5 or 10 minutes the secretary would call over the intercom for another student to come to the front office to be sent home.

It was a very strange few days. I wasn’t able to really catch up on all the news for the first few days (during the work day) because I had to go to bed early and there was no television in the new classroom I was in.

Sometime later my mother told me that on the news she heard that some of the poorest sections of Lower Manhattan raised money for the relief efforts. These were people living in the ghettos, yet they all came together and raised $1,000. That is A LOT of money to these people and they spent it all on helping others. What a beautiful thing to transpire in the midst of such evil and tragedy!

I also remember hearing that there was another plane of terrorists, with box cutters and a lot of cash, headed for San Antonio but the plane was grounded because of mechanical failures.

That was a tough time in our family. My little niece and nephew had moved to Austin almost a year prior to 911 – on my mother’s birthday of all days - and it was DIFFICULT as hell coming to terms with it. The kids were having a hard time, even a year later, and my mother and mine’s hearts were broken. We felt so helpless and we missed the kids like you would not believe. I was already worried about them adjusting to being apart from us, to school, etc and then 911 happened and I wanted to comfort them about the images they were seeing on tv. (At the time I remember them having psychologists on tv saying that kids seeing the images on tv over and over again think it’s happening in real time and their parents need to explain to them that that isn’t what’s happening). I remember being really worried over all of that. I was also worried that my sister would cave and let her husband talk her back into all of them flying to Washington of all places for some runner’s marathon that he wanted to be a part of. I was incredibly upset and worried over that, seeing how a terror attack had just happened.

I also recall when airplanes were finally allowed to operate again. The first time I heard one was in the middle of the night. It sounded so loud to me, and as if it was flying really low. I literally shot up in bed when I heard it. I finally lay back down after I heard the plane disappear. That was such an odd feeling to have.

I even remember reading around that time, on a teacher’s forum, that their K-5 elementary school had a little ceremony for the families and victims of 911. It was during this assembly that they all saw an airplane for the first time since the attack. The teacher said that everyone – including the adults – all became silent. The teacher said she even made sure to look for any familiar identifying marks or colors on the plane.

The students were worried, and the teachers told them that it was a commercial airliner filled with families just trying to get home. After being reassured, the kids all decided that the plane flying overheard must have been arranged by their principal as the perfect ending to their ceremony.

This teacher said that she was so proud of them because they took the assembly so seriously and were so mature and respectful about it all.

But no, I will NEVER forget where I was on 911 same as everyone else.





And this is a little off topic, but ---

During the week of 911 my aunt was in the hospital. Her doctor botched her first surgery, and so she needed a second one. She almost died. (My mother and I both sensed when she almost did die, even though we never mentioned it to each other at the time it happened. It was days later that we both brought it up and realized our experiences aligned) . All I recall is that we were both in the kitchen and it was something like 9:55. I know for sure it was 55 minutes after some hour.

Oddly enough, at the time I had the feeling that my aunt was dying, my mother and I both said nothing to each other. Mom left the room. It was some time later that she told me she had gone upstairs to my brother’s old room, to try to connect with my aunt (her sister) and her Granny. (Mom’s Granny passed away in the 1980’s, and my mother practically raised her sister/my aunt). She said she asked for Granny to be with her sister because she couldn’t be with her for her second surgery.

Strangely enough, my aunt later told us that she remembered seeing Granny. She was standing next to her, stroking her hair and saying “Oh, Jennifer. You’re so pretty.” My aunt told my mother that it was as if Granny wasn’t telling her to fight it. She was allowing Jennifer to make the choice on her own.

So here my aunt is recovering from her second surgery, and her horrible doctor disappears out of the blue. No follow up appointment at all. He did the surgery, and then he was gone. Now, this doctor was Egyptian or something and 1 or 2 days before 911 the man LEAVES THE COUNTRY?!

My mother always had a really strange feeling about this man, and then he confirms her suspicions by literally fleeing the country right before 911. WHAT kind of doctor abandons his patient after a major surgery like that?

I’m not saying this man knew anything about any impending terror attacks, but I have always found the timing of it all awfully odd. His behavior was just really strange. Maybe it was because he knew he had MAJORLY messed up with my aunt’s surgeries, and so he subsequently panicked, but the man FLED THE COUNTRY without any warning whatsoever and then only 1 or 2 days later 911 happens? I just find that oddly coincidental.

But enough rambling. All left to say is this:

Back in 2014 I did a short 911 blog post where I posted two important links. I’ll just copy/paste that old post below. There is some POWERFUL reading on those two sites.

Click HERE for that post.