9/11: Honoring Our First Responders and Remembering the Role of Our Teachers

To the first responders who answered the call that morning in New York, at the Pentagon, and in Pennsylvania, we owe a debt we can never fully repay.

Images from September 11th have never left us. Among them are people desperately trying to escape unimaginable danger while others went directly toward it. They went in without knowing what was happening above them or what might happen next. Many never came back out. They made the greatest sacrifice.

Across the country, including here in our own communities, first responders also reported for duty and prepared for the unknown. Today, we know where the attacks happened and how that terrible morning unfolded. But for hours, nobody knew. They didn’t know whether their community would be called upon. They only knew that it could be. And they were ready.

A quarter century has passed. There are adults alive today who weren’t yet born when September 11th happened. For them, it’s history. For those of us who were here, it doesn’t quite feel that way. We remember where we were, how we found out, and that strange period when we knew something terrible was happening but didn’t yet understand what. Most of us carry some small, personal memory from that day that somehow stayed with us.

And the toll didn’t end when that day was over. Some who walked away from those sites became seriously ill years later because of what they were exposed to. Others came home carrying memories they couldn’t leave behind. For them, September 11th didn’t end when the smoke cleared.

While September 11th has become history, millions of us remember that Tuesday morning not because somebody taught us about it, but because we lived it.

And I’d like to share my story.

Twenty-five years ago, I was in high school. I was old enough to drive. I had my license, and on that particular morning I felt very grown up because I had permission to sign myself out of school for a doctor’s appointment across town.

So I’m living my best life, thinking I’m really adult-like. I’ve got the radio blaring. I’m listening to the Russ Parr Morning Show out of D.C. And for a high school kid who had been given permission to sign himself out of school and drive across town alone, I was feeling pretty cool.

I went to my doctor’s appointment around 8:00 that morning, and everything was normal. The appointment took a while, and as I was checking out, I could hear the ladies at the reception desk talking in the background about a plane that had hit a building. One of them had heard there might have been another one at the Pentagon.

And I remember thinking, “What kind of show have they been watching? Sounds intense.”

But I carried on. I said goodbye, walked out, got back in my car and turned the Russ Parr Morning Show back on. I figured I’d probably enjoy the rest of my adulting coolness and ride around for a few more minutes before I went back to school.

But the show had changed.

The vibrant, morning-party atmosphere of my favorite radio show had become something I didn’t recognize. Russ Parr and the other hosts were serious. They had an affiliate from New York on the phone. Normally, the news on that show was about celebrities, rap stars, pop culture. But this woman was talking about the World Trade Center. A plane had crashed into it. The building was on fire.

And as I drove down Commerce Avenue, I started putting together what those women in the doctor’s office had been talking about.

Then the broadcaster in New York exclaimed:

“Another plane has just hit the second tower!”

And Russ Parr, in a tone of voice I had never heard from him before, said:

“Our nation is under attack.”

Holy sh*t!

This is serious. What is happening?

And all of a sudden, my carefree morning of pretend adulting got very real. I didn’t feel very grown up anymore. I was confused. I was shaken.

And I’ll be honest with you. I wanted to see my mom.

My mom taught kindergarten at Ressie Jeffries Elementary School. So instead of going directly back to the high school, I drove straight to her school. I wanted to see her so badly that I ran down the hallway to her classroom.

And when I got there, she and her teaching assistant were doing what kindergarten teachers do. Kindergarten. The kids were busy with whatever activity they were doing that morning. They were laughing. They were being kindergartners. They had no idea what was happening in the world outside that classroom.

I looked at my mom. She looked back at me. And I realized she had a more important job to do

Many of those children had parents who worked in Washington. Soon enough, they might be frightened. Soon enough, they might see the adults around them frightened. But right then, inside that classroom, everything was still normal.

And my mother’s job was to keep it that way for as long as she could. Her job was to be stable for them.

So I gave her a hug. I didn’t want the kids to see how panicked I felt. I just looked at her, nodded, and left.

When I got back to the high school and walked into my classroom, the television was on. My teacher and classmates watched everything unfold in real time. And no one could protect us from it.

A lot of my classmates had family who worked in Washington. One of them had a father who worked at the Pentagon. And that’s when I realized our teachers had been handed a completely different mission that morning.

My mother’s job had been to preserve normalcy for a room full of little children. Our teachers had to help us face the reality of what was happening. And the thing is, they didn’t have any more answers than we did. They were watching it happen too. They were trying to process it too. But they stayed there with us.

And that’s what we did for the rest of that day. We watched. We learned what we could. We prayed. And we looked to our teachers, who somehow had to guide us through something they themselves were experiencing for the first time.

I’ve thought about that a lot over the years.

We rightly honor the people who ran toward the danger that morning. But across this country, people also suddenly found themselves responsible for being steady for somebody else.

For my mother, that meant keeping a room full of five-year-olds laughing a little longer. For my high school teachers, it meant standing in front of teenagers old enough to understand that something terrible was happening, and staying with us even though they couldn’t tell us what would happen next.

So today, I want to add our teachers to our thanks. They found themselves on a different kind of front line that morning. Children looked to them for reassurance at a moment when they needed reassurance themselves. And they showed up.

I started that morning feeling very grown up because I could sign myself out of school and drive myself to a doctor’s appointment. By the time I got back, I understood something very different about what being grown up actually meant.

It wasn’t being able to drive around town by yourself. It was what I saw my mother doing in that kindergarten classroom. It was what I saw my teachers doing when I returned to school. And in its most extraordinary and sacrificial form, it was what we saw people doing at the sites of those attacks.

When something frightening happens, when there are no easy answers, and nobody knows what comes next, somebody has to be steady for somebody else. Somebody has to show up.

On September 11th, so many people did.

Some gave everything. Some survived and have spent the years since living with wounds that are physical, emotional, or both. And so many others simply did what needed to be done for the person in front of them. They took care of each other.

Maybe that’s one of the things worth carrying forward from that terrible day.

There will come a September 11th remembrance when nobody standing here actually remembers September 11th, 2001. That day will come. And when it does, what remains will depend on the stories we tell while we’re still here to tell them.

So we tell them. We tell the stories of those who never came home. We take care of those who did come home, but came home changed. And we honor those who stepped forward when they were needed.

May we be worthy of their example. May we be steady for one another when our time comes to be steady. And may we never forget.

Parson Brown
Warren County, VA

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