Today is 9/11

We weren't exactly sure what was going on. We were in fourth grade. All we knew was that something bad had happened, something that required us to go home immediately. We couldn't be happier (keep in mind we were nine). While we waited for our parents to show up, we played a game of hero and villain and ran around pretending to shoot each other with machine guns made from math cubes, not knowing that the events outside would be followed by a real game of hero and villain with real machine guns.

My parents were at work. My grandpa was immobile. No one was at home but my grandma and they were having trouble getting in contact with her. This was perhaps the one time those blue emergency cards we had to fill out at the beginning of the year were being used. I felt a sense of urgency when my grandma showed up and quickly led my sister and me out of the school along with a friend whose mother was at work.

Outside, everything seemed normal. No one was panicking like I was. There was probably one more police car on the street than usual, but nothing seemed out of the ordinary. After we dropped off my friend, we continued on our way home.

When we reached Bowery, one of the arteries of Chinatown, there was chaos. The Twin Towers were no more than a mile away and there was dust everywhere. Paramedics were handing out face masks, and we each took one and put it on. There were people covered with dust. There were people staring with perplexed faces at what was now a dusty hole in the sky. An ambulance that passed by looked like a toy car that had been sitting under my bed for too long. My grandma shielded us from the bits of debris that were flying off the vehicle as it passed on its way to nearby hospitals.

When we got home, I turned on the news to find that the collapse of the North Tower had left us with CBS as the only channel available. I was more interested in watching history unfold outside my window than watching Dan Rather narrate it. Much of the downtown subway system was shut down, and for the first time in my life, I saw the Manhattan and Brooklyn Bridges packed with people other than tourists.

For the next few days, we were shown footage after footage of the World Trade Center buildings collapsing. We were shown footage of dying people, of terrified survivors, of dust and debris. It was nonstop. I eventually tired of listening and played with Legos for the week we were out of school. On the last day, we were shown the iconic Iwo-Jima-esque image of the flag raised above the destruction site. And we went back to school with the events that happened that day clear in our heads.

In the year after the attacks, my school received condolences in the form of teddy bears from schools as far away as Philadelphia. Life continued, but Chinatown was no longer the same. The streets leading to Police Plaza were shut down and smoke could be seen pluming out of the site. My family received condolences from the Salvation Army. It was where I picked out the somber-looking stuffed dog that still sits on my bed.

Every year, I visit Ground Zero just to remember the day my view of the world changed. My grandparents' generation had World War II, my parents' generation had the Cold War, and we have 9/11. The images, the giant flag, the staircase would all bring me back to that day. Every year, it seemed like it all just happened yesterday.

On my street corner, I would look at the hole and try to place the Twin Towers where they would have been. But this year, I couldn't do it. The image of the towers had faded in my mind. I couldn't remember where they were in that empty space. And for some reason, this year, I didn't feel the grief I felt in previous years. When we stood for the moment of silence, my mind could think of nothing. I could certainly recall the events of the day, but I could no longer feel the strong emotions that went with it. I couldn't invoke tears anymore, I couldn't feel depressed anymore. I even forgot about my annual trek to Ground Zero.

It seemed I had done in seven years what many others will take a lifetime to do. I had not forgotten the events, but I somehow moved past them. I didn't feel ready to give up the memories and the grief; I even felt guilty that I didn't visit the site this year and couldn't feel the emotion this year. But at some point, the events become a legacy in history, and I had arrived at that point earlier than I expected to.