The second plane tore into the South Tower 20 years ago this morning:
Maria, who was four months pregnant, and I were living in Santa Monica, CA. Both of us were born and raised in NYC and both of us were, at the time, craving real bagels, real pizza, real pierogies, and real Chinese food. It's the curse of the transplanted New Yorker -- the things you miss like its food seem to weigh on your soul (and my soul is my stomach).
At the time, Maria was in graduate school and I was teaching at Yeshiva University High School of Los Angeles (YULA); and we were nervously planning to be parents. I was up at 6:00 AM for work and as I tuned into the morning news, the initial impact of Flight 11 was already about 15 minutes old and speculation as to what and why was the panicked tone. Then at around 6:03 AM PST, Flight 175 plowed into the South Tower and there I was, 3000 miles away watching, in real time, something devastate my Home. I woke Maria and we immediately went into recon mode. We called our mothers. Both were safe. My worries immediately shifted to my father, who I kind of knew would be travelling to his office in Midtown at around that time... He was safe. Then our other loved ones... then... then... and then I had to go to work. My students! It was only my first week as a new teacher at YULA and all of a sudden I was nearly overwhelmed by my need to see my students, to talk to THEM.
On 9/11/01 I discovered new levels of my devotion: I revere, above all, the first responders; I honor all those caught up and killed in the unholy smoke of that morning, some of whom were friends and practically family members; and I will forever admire New Yorkers for their resilience and fortitude. But among the remarkable people that changed me that day and in the following days were my students. Their sincerity, their earnestness, their eagerness to understand their new worlds raised me up, a mere transplanted New Yorker in California, and helped light MY way forward.
They still do.
No comments:
Post a Comment