Twenty five years ago, all of our lives were changed forever. I recall the morning quite vividly. I was on faculty, and my morning regimen consisted of waking up around six, making the coffee, waking my partner, and then walking the dog. It was an incredibly beautiful fall day. Upon returning to the house, which at the time was a small two-bedroom zero lot line home, I would take over feeding the kids while my partner walked upstairs to get ready. My son was three, my daughter 1 1/2. While I had traveled internationally, my focus to that point had been teaching science, and doing the best I could at being a good dad. Honestly, I still had a lot of growing up to do, but at that moment I was simply focused on letting the kids play and watching the morning news.
When the first plane hit, no one knew exactly what had happened. The morning news broke and to indicate that a small plane appears to have hit the World Trade Center. I yelled up to my partner. “Hey, you need to turn on the news, something has happened.” A small trickle of smoke wafted away from the building where the plane had entered. Speculation on the news was that a small plane, misguided, had flown into the World Trade Center and it was unclear whether it was simply a matter of misdirection or suicide effort. By this point my partner had joined me. Not knowing the degree to which this small signal indicated a much greater and darker day effort, we both went about our business which meant shuttling the kids to preschool and in my case walking to work. Not long after, as the second plane careened into the second tower, it became clear to us both that it was not a small plane and it was not a random act.
Much of the rest of that day is a blur. I recall getting updates periodically in between classes and I have very clear memories of asking my classes to take a moment of silence before we got underway. I recall students being shellshocked and trying to get updates and trying to make sense of what was happening. The weekend after 9/11/01, my wife’s family was supposed to gather in Dewey Beach, DE for an annual gathering. With planes grounded, I drove my family out, stayed one night and returned the next day. As I drove west from Delaware, through the Beltway and across Pennsylvania, I marveled at the flags and signs draping each overpass, for miles and miles. Alone in a car all those hours, I realized that I had just experienced that generational moment that those before hearken back to: Black Tuesday (Oct 29, 1929); the Attack on Pearl Harbor (Dec 7, 1941); the assassinations of Kennedy and King; and, now, Sept. 11, 2001. When I got home, I collected all the newsmagazines and newspapers, and hand wrote individual letters to my two children, letters I did not give to them for many years. Ten years later, to mark the day, I did the same for our youngest, who joined this world after it was changed.
Twenty five years ago, I waited for days to receive word that my college roommate, Ethan, who was working in the financial sector in a building adjacent to the towers, was okay. As it turns out, Ethan was one of those thousands of people who, covered in dust, cross the bridges from lower Manhattan to safer locations, walking several miles to get home in New Jersey. His building (WTC 5) was so damaged that it later collapsed. But Ethan was one of the fortunate in lower Manhattan who got out alive. I had not reflected on how that event and that long walk has changed Ethan, but I know he’s a positive influence in the world, and I’m pretty sure his commitments and efforts have been redoubled by his experience.
Reflecting on how those events have changed me, I have come to recognize that, as I have transitioned through various new roles, I have carried with me the desire to ensure that I could bear a role in making the world safer, enhancing understanding of difference. My limited international experience previous to 9/11 transformed into fierce internationalism. The first step for me was contacting former students who are Muslim to see if they were okay. I called them. I conveyed that the hatred and vitriol a few misguided people were directing at Muslim Americans was not the way many of us feel about our neighbors. I remember attending mosque with my friend, Ibrahima. I directed efforts at modeling that we all need to guard against Islamophobia. Looking back, my response to 9/11 has been to reach out. As my worldview has expanded, so has my belief that we all need to open our horizons. I have had the good fortune of building friendships and experiences in distinctly different cultures, I have come to recognize Islam, like Christianity and all other religions, is practiced through a wide range of interpretations, in which peace, love, and family; tradition, worship, and giving; and, unfortunately, sometimes extremism and intolerance, all are present. I am more committed to a pursuit of greater global understanding, of greater tolerance for one anothers various view points and beliefs, and to ensuring that every student who I am able to touch is a little more thoughtful, a little more patient, and a little more curious about the differences around them.
We fear what we don’t understand, but one legacy of 9/11 can be that we seek the understanding that will drive fear of difference away. The responsibility for determining that legacy, remembrance of the fallen, and for the kind of society that will result, is ours. I hope we are up to the task.
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