Do You Remember Where You Were?

Memory is something that we all grasp onto and don’t want to let go. However, as we age, some things we start to forget bit by bit. It is just the nature of things. However, some things are so imprinted in your mind that you will never forget. I have several things that have happened that I will always remember, whether I want to or not.

9/11

I remember being at a friend’s house. They would take us to school when my mom had to work. I remember their television being on that morning, but it was on mute. I saw an image of a plane crashing into a building, thinking it was part of a movie trailer. My mind was on bigger things. My birthday was coming up in a few days, and I was wondering how my family would celebrate. However, I soon learned, with the rest of my classmates, that it wasn’t a movie trailer, but an actual attack on our country. I can’t remember what my classmates thought at the time. But I remember my head spinning. Were we going to war, and if so, what did that mean for us? Since I was also reading the Left Behind series at the same time, I was wondering if it meant the rapture was coming? I felt small at that point. I never had to consider what was going on beyond my community. War was a far-away concept to me. It was something we read about in history books. I never thought it was something that would happen in my lifetime. I slowly realized how naive I had been. History books were not just to teach us about the past. They were a warning of what can still happen to us going forward, especially if we don’t follow the warning signs. For weeks going forward, I wondered if history had prepared us for what’s to come. Considering what is going on in our country with wars, deporting citizens, and less diversity, I feel that we have a long way to go as a society.

The First Black President

I remembered watching the 24-hour news channel with my sister as the votes were being counted. I debated whether to keep watching or not. I didn’t think Obama would win. I felt that racism was too rooted in our society to let that happen, and I didn’t think that I would see a black president during my lifetime. However, when the newscaster announced Obama as the winner, I sat there stunned. A black man had ascended to the most important job in our country. It made me believe that anything was possible for blacks in America. Racism was not as deeply rooted as I thought it was. However, I slowly began to realize that I was wrong. What I saw as progress, many others thought was a threat to their way of life. Those people fought with everything they had to get things back to the status quo. There were years of progressing backwards as a country. My hope for diversity and equality slowly started to drift away. Those in power have an agenda, and I am scared of what that means for the future that has yet to come.

Death of a Music Legend

In 2009, I watched E! News a lot to get the latest celebrity gossip. One day, I remembered them starting their news segment with the death of Farrah Fawcett, and then the screen showed a rainbow of colors for a minute. Then the newscaster broke out with the news that Michael Jackson had died. I had never seen a news program quickly scrap a topic on air before for big news. It was fascinating seeing the newscasters trying to keep up with the incoming information surrounding Michael Jackson’s death. It was like watching a chicken with the head cut off. 

The whole thing made me think about Michael Jackson’s history. Before he died, news programs were mocking him for the last decade due to his appearance and obsession with plastic surgery, and the child abuse allegations. After his death, all that mockery went away. Now people were singing his praises and celebrating his music, with purchases of his songs going through the roof. I remember being fascinated that a prison in an Asian country had taped how their prisoners came up with a dance routine to one of Michael Jackson’s songs. It proved how universal his music was. 

Even though the child abuse allegations stayed around years after Michael Jackson’s death, it seems that fans ignored that. The recent biopic about Michael was panned by critics, especially for not including the child abuse allegations. Despite the criticism, the movie ended up grossing almost a billion dollars worldwide. I agree with critics that there should be more of a focus on the child abuse because of the irreparable harm that it caused. However, I am wondering if his legendary status can be tarnished by anything. Given the success of his biopic despite the child abuse allegations, I tend to believe his fans will primarily focus on the positives about him more than anything. 

COVID

I know that COVID was first discovered in 2019. But I didn’t become aware of it until January 2020. It wasn’t because of the news. American news wouldn’t focus on it until months later (which I have always thought was unfortunate). Oddly enough, a YouTuber was sounding the alarm about this. He was showing videos on camera of how China was trying to rapidly build more hospitals as COVID was spreading quickly. He thought that Americans should be more alarmed, but his friends thought that he was making a big deal about nothing. 

However, the images from China scared me. A disease was spreading rapidly enough that there were no more hospitals to treat the sick, so they had to hurry to create more within days. I didn’t understand how the American news stations weren’t covering this. Not only did it sound like a breaking news story, but it sounded like it was a disease that could spread to other countries. 

Later that month, the company I worked for sent out a company-wide email on how they were taking the outbreak seriously. I knew they had production in the area where the outbreak was, but I found it telling that they needed to send a company-wide email about it. It let me know that not only was COVID serious, but it was foreshadowing how things were about to change. 

I remember my mom trying to convince us to go to a wedding the next month and how my dad, sister, and I just looked at each other. Through our jobs, we all had a heads-up that COVID was about to change society, but my mom really didn’t believe it until the disease hit full force in the U.S.

Grocery stores became scarce for a lot of things, like disinfectant and toilet paper. People were forced to stay home. Jobs moved remotely. Hospitals became overrun. My mom, a nurse at the time, was scared because the hospitals were running out of supplies to keep them safe while treating people with COVID. Learning switched to online. 

It was interesting to see how people handled the outbreak. It drove my mom and sister nuts because they loved to go places. My introverted self was happy as a clam because I was used to entertaining myself at home, and I already worked from home before COVID began. It also made my mom and sister suspicious of receiving packages from out of the country. I had bought a mug from one of my favorite YouTubers in South Korea, but my mom and sister forced me to throw it out. They were scared that it would spread diseases. Normally, I would try to fight back with logic, but in the early days it was hard to tell what was logical. We knew that COVID could spread, but didn’t know how. We also didn’t know if you could recover if you got it or not. I couldn’t say for certain that the mug was safe to use, so as much as I hated it, I threw it away. 

The one thing I found sad through this was how people tried to demonize wearing a mask to protect people. Masks help to keep the rate of transmission of the illness from person to person. However, people thought wearing masks violated their rights. They didn’t care if they spread the disease to people whose immune system was already compromised, like myself. It made me scared to venture out because while most people cared about not spreading COVID, there was still a huge number of people who either denied COVID’s existence or just didn’t care about spreading it to others. It is kind of trippy that it has been years since COVID started, but it feels like it was yesterday. It has definitely messed up my perception of time. 

From the above events, I learned that there will be some things that you will remember for better or worse. I am curious about what future events will be instilled in my memory for years to come. What do you guys think? What event do you remember as it was happening?