A Child's Memory of 9/11

9/11 is a day most people will never forget. 

Most of my Newark Patch colleagues probably lived somewhere else at the time, perhaps had a different job or were still in college or high school then.

I was only in fourth grade when it happened, and it’s been a little more than half of my lifetime since then. But the memory of that day remains fresh in my mind even now.

I woke up that day around the time the South Twin Tower collapsed in Manhattan. My parents were already aware of what was happening, and they didn’t say anything about it as I got ready for school.  However, it wasn’t long before I found out.

I was standing by my classroom waiting for school to start when my friend from another class came up to me.  Without hesitation, she told me how there was an attack on the World Trade Center.

Immediately I was shocked by what she just said. However, it was hard for the words to sink in right away.

The door to my classroom was open. As my friend and I peered in, we saw the news showing footage of black smoke coming out of the towers from earlier.

That’s when it really hit me.

There was no way the subject could be avoided in class. That same morning, my teacher talked about it briefly and even showed us a bit of the news coverage. 

A girl started crying and asked if we could change the subject.

The day following the attack, I woke up rather early in the morning — around 4 a.m. or 5 a.m. With the cool night air coming in through my open window, I could hear a few airplanes outside. 

They were flying pretty low and that really scared me. 

I knew how resourceful both San Francisco and the Silicon Valley were, and I was scared that the terrorists were going to come here next because of that. 

I didn’t realize that that they were military planes patrolling the sky. I got so scared that I went to sleep in the room my brothers shared at the time, just so I wouldn’t be alone. 

I continued doing that a few more times before I eventually stopped.

Being as young as I was then, I didn’t have all my facts straight regarding the horrific event. For instance, I didn’t know the Pentagon had been attacked that day too.

What I did know is that things would never be the same again. I knew that from that point on, every year on Sept. 11, it would be a day of remembering those who unfairly lost their lives.

Maybe what was just as hard for me to accept that day was the fact that people would actually go to great lengths to cause a tragedy like this. 

Having learned about wars our country has fought in the past, I thought we had long since left that period and that the United States was safe from attacks happening ever again. 

I was proven wrong on that fateful day in fourth grade. I never felt more scared to be an American than at that time.

Since then, life has been nothing but an aftermath for me. I wasn’t surprised when we went to war a few years later and I heard about the bodies of fallen soldiers being brought home to their heartbroken families.

9/11 Remembrance Day is surreal for me every year, knowing that it marks another year since that horrific day. 

While the killing of Osama bin Laden a few months ago brought relief, that doesn’t mean the scars of that day in 2001 have been erased.  We’re still mourning, and we always will be.

That was how 9/11 was for me. I was just a kid then.

To read about memories of another local teen who is a Muslim American and was 8 years old during the Sept. 11 attacks, click here.