...as I walked into the school building at Trinity Lutheran Church, Hoffman, IL, on the morning of Tuesday, September 11, 2001, we were met with people saying that a plane had crashed into one of the towers of the World Trade Center in New York City. I had two thoughts: 1) what is the World Trade Center? and 2) how could such an accident happen? I had no clue about New York City. Penny and I had never been to New York, so we knew nothing about the city. I imagine there were a lot of people who were just like me. They had no clue what the Towers were. Now we know for sure what they were and what this meant. That day, it was a big question mark.
The other thing is that I did not understand what had happened. I thought it must have been a small plane, maybe a single engine plane that someone had accidently flown into the building. Maybe the person was flying around New York City and got confused and hit a building. What a terrible accident.
As I talked with other parents and teachers at Trinity, folks told me that it was a jet liner, a big plane. They were beginning to think that it might have been on purpose, not an accident. That boggled the mind. Why would anyone do that? Why would anyone fly a plane into a building? I wasn't thinking terrorism. I wasn't thinking that the country was under attack. I was thinking about accidents and how terrible that accident must have been.
After spending the 10-15 minutes before class talking with others about what happened, I headed into the classroom to begin teaching confirmation class. Memory work - don't remember what it was. Lesson - don't remember what that was. But I remember when the secretary, Rita, came to the door and called me over. A second plane had crashed into the other tower. They are thinking it is an attack on the nation. We were in shock. How could this happen? Why would it happen? We were America. We helped everyone. Why would anyone attack us?
A TV was rolled into the hallway (this was before every classroom had tvs). It was turned on, and we watched in horror as they replayed the scene of the second plane crashing into the south tower. Then they had video of the first plane crashing into the north tower. Smoke filling the air. We were in shock. We were watching the video, not knowing what was coming.
How could anyone know what was coming? After all, this is not something that we had even thought about happening. We talked about it. We watched. Then we tried to get the class back together. It was not easy, because the kids, the teachers, everyone wanted to talk about what happened. Then there was a report of another plane crashing into the Pentegon. Wow! This was getting to be too much. It was shocking. It was more than anyone could have expected.
The day had begun so peaceful. Isn't that the way it is? The day starts normal and then something happens to change that. It is like that when a day begins and someone has an accident, a heart attack, a sickness, a sudden death, something awful that takes place. Days change in a moment. Most of the time, it is personal, on a family level, sometimes it might effect a community, but nothing had the impact on the entire nation as that morning did on 9/11. The whole nation was in shock. People were starting to wonder, what was going to happen next. There was lots of talk. Who was safe? Were other planes hijacked? Were there going to more places attacked? Were there going to be more deaths?
We did not know what was still to come. We thought perhaps the worst was over. But, little did we know...
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