9/11, 2001, Liesje Sandler

From MemoryArchive

Who: Liesje
What: 9/11 Attacks
When: 2001
Where: Washington, DC

I'll never forget that day. It was the second week of my senior year of high school. The thing I remember most vividly about the aftermath of the announcement that planes had crashed into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon is the rumors that ran wild. The State Department had been bombed. The Metro had shut down. The National Mall was burning. Nobody seemed to have a handle on what was really happening. Everyone at school was frantic. In the D.C. suburbs, there are few people who don't have at least one close relative working in the city. While still at school, I managed to talk to my mom, who told me my dad had made it out of the city.

We were let out of school two hours early. Sitting in the cafeteria before leaving school, we mulled over the rumors we had been hearing. What if the Mall really was burning? Would there be more attacks? And of course, we had the image of the plane crashing into the second tower and of the towers collapsing burned forever into our memories. We imagined how horrible it must have been for the people on the planes.

It was such a beautiful day. Blue sky, not a cloud in sight. We walked out of school, and the fighter planes buzzed overhead. My mom was there waiting for us. When we got home, my dad was standing in front of the house. All four of us, my two brothers, my mom and I, got out of the car and my dad just grabbed all of us at once. Tears in his eyes, he said, "I'm just glad we're all here together right now." The five of us just stood there for awhile on our front lawn, holding each other and crying.