September 11th

I will never forget the day that defined my generation.

I had just started the second grade and I was eating an Egg-O waffle while watching Spongebob Squarepants. Suddenly the channel changed on its own, I thought maybe I had accidentally sat on the control or something but then the news flashed on.

They replayed the first tower getting hit by a plane and I froze. My grandmother walked in and then ran back out and called my aunt, I don't know what they were talking about but then the newscasters started listing off other flights that had been reported as missing or off their scheduled flight path. While showing live feed from New York City of the Twin Towers from across the river, the woman reporting suddenly gasped and covered her hand with her mouth. I watched with my knees hugged tight to my chest as the second tower got hit. The plane slicing through it like a knife and so quickly that I thought it was animated for a second.

I had barely processed what I saw when one tower started collapsing. It reminded me of Jenga, it started off slow but then all of a sudden all at once. I was in shock. My mom had just flown to New York the month before and had taken pictures of the Towers and promised to take me one day.

Then my grandma came back in the room and asked me what happened. I tried to tell her that the Tower fell but she didn't believe me. She dragged me to the car and took me to school. I tried explaining how many planes were missing and how scared I was but she told me to stop making things up and that the Towers couldn't fall.

I got to my classroom and we had the TV on in the corner of the room. It was playing a news channel and replayed the Tower collapsing. We were all sitting in silence, my teacher was at her desk and asked us to work on our homework quietly.

We watched the second Tower fall together. My friend started crying because her mom was a Flight Attendant and she couldn't remember where she was supposed to fly to that day. The teacher told us to stay at our seats but I walked over and hugged her tightly and let her cry on my shoulder.

After a couple minutes our teacher stood up and looked at all of us, one at a time. We were shaking, crying, confused, we didn't know the true significance of what was happening but watching people screaming and covered in blood running through clouds of dust was terrifying.

"Why are they doing this?" One boy asked. He looked at our teacher straight in the eye. "Are they all bad people?"

"Who?" She asked quietly.

"The people in the turbans." He said.

"Everyone on the circle mat."

I thought we were in trouble for a minute. We all gathered on the mat where we normally sat for presentations or reading time. She turned off the tv and made sure we were all quiet.

"If you remember nothing else from this year, please remember this." She started. "The actions of a few, do not define the entirety of the race."

"What does that mean exactly?" My friend Nina asked.

"It means that the men on those planes may be bad, don't mean that everyone that looks like them is guilty."

She let that sink in for a moment and then continued.

"You may not understand this now, but someday I hope you do. Just because someone is Muslim, Christian, Catholic, Buddist, or any other religion doesn't mean that they're good or bad people. What defines you is the decisions you make and how you treat others. If you meet a man with a turban, or a woman with a scarf around her hair, they're Muslim and they're just people. Don't judge them because of the men on those planes."

That has stayed with me my entire life. I have never judged someone based on how they look, their accent, their religion, or anything other than how they treat others.

And now, with it being September 11th again, 19 years later. I'm shocked that they replay that footage that traumatized my entire generation as we ate Lucky Charms and sat in our classrooms every year.

The one thing that hasn't changed for me through the years? Is how I felt when my teacher told us to stay brave and kind.

I think that's a sentiment that we need now more than ever.