End of the World

The longest days are remembered for nothing good. 

The day started normal, just like everyone says. It was like any other Tuesday morning this time of year in New Jersey. The sun was out, the air was warm and crisp, and the sky was mostly clear. My dad called to my sister and I across the hallway.

“Guys, are you getting ready?” 

Our older brother had left for school already. He graduated from the fifth grade in the spring and now he was a big sixth grader in middle school. Now that he was in the sixth grade, he walked to school, a twenty-minute walk to and from. 

My sister and I got ready for school upstairs. We routinely brushed our teeth in succession. After showering, we lathered ourselves with cocoa butter and threw on the outfits we picked out the night before.

Our baby brother, just two months old at the time, was tied to our mom’s back in a colorful Ghanaian cloth. Our mom made pancakes and sausage links downstairs in the kitchen. I poured a generous amount of syrup on one freshly made pancake and tactfully cut the links into bite-sized pieces, saving the ones with crispy ends for last. Once we had a bite to eat, our father checked the clock and hollered to us from the front door.

 “Okay, guys. You ready? Let’s roll.” He declared. 

We climbed into our dad’s 4Runner and enjoyed a quick three-minute commute to the elementary school, just enough time for one song from the Lion King II soundtrack.

Something Strange

Since I was a first grader, I was dropped off in front of Franklin’s main entrance. My sister, a kindergartner, was dropped off in the back entrance. As I let myself out of my dad’s truck, he turned to me.

“Focus! Study hard, ok?”

Grade students who arrived at school early waited for the bell to ring in the auditorium. The auditorium was a big space and served as an area for students to settle in and relax before classes started. Sometimes, the faculty put on Nickelodeon on a large TV that sat in front of the stage. Once the bell rang, students filed out of the auditorium and duly reported to their classrooms. 

It wasn’t until after lunch that I noticed strangeness. After recess concluded, some of my classmates didn’t return to class. I figured maybe they got hurt in recess and were at the nurse’s office. But multiple people getting hurt in one period? Something was awry. Things felt off. 

Ms. Xavier, my first-grade teacher, continued class as usual. Well, at least she tried to.

Ms. Xavier was in her late forties or fifties. Her graying black hair fell to her shoulders, and she wore dark blouses with floral patterns. Ms. Xavier was a patient woman; she never raised her voice or became visibly upset with any of us. On this day, however, she was irritable. She cried multiple times, and even hugged other teachers.

The entire afternoon, Ms. Xavier left the classroom in haste every thirty minutes or so. Several more of my classmates began to be excused from class.

“Angelica, your mom is here to pick you up.” 

“Joy, your dad is here to pick you up.”

“Johnathan, your parents are here to pick you up.”

Over a dozen announcements were made that afternoon. Sometimes the administration made announcements on the intercom when parents or guardians had arrived at the principal’s office to pick up students. I began to worry.

“It’s not time to go home,” I thought. “Why is everybody getting picked up?”

It was a chaotic day. I’m not sure we did much learning. I couldn’t appreciate the enormity of what was happening just 20 minutes northeast of us. 

Out of 21 students in our class, no more than 10 of us remained at the end of the day. Before the school day ended, Ms. Xavier read to us from her wooden stool while we sat on the carpet in front of her. While Ms. Xavier was reading, she abruptly closed the book and began to tear up. A girl in my class asked her what was wrong. 

“You guys will understand someday,” she said wiping her tears with a tissue.

At the end of the school day, Ms. Xavier led the few of us in a single-file line to the playground doors where families waited to pick up their kids. My older brother already had my sister in hand, waiting promptly for me to be released. Ms. Xavier acknowledged my brother with a soft smile, patted me on the back, and handed me off to my brother. 

Bomb

“There was a bomb,” my brother said to me, as we walked to my dad’s truck. 

It was almost as if he was talking to himself, also trying to process the terror that had unfolded earlier that day. I didn’t give his comment much thought, but I figured it must have explained the confusion at school that day. 

Once we got home, my mom was in the living room sitting on the edge of her seat, her eyes glued to the TV. My mom called my dad into the room to update him on the latest. We all joined her her in the living room. My parents didn’t have to explain a thing to me. I read well enough to understand.

“U.S. UNDER ATTACK”

“TERROR AT WORLD TRADE CENTER”

The bold-faced headlines in all caps, the images of the towers engulfed in flames billowing with black smoke and falling like a stack of cards, videos of people on the streets of the Financial District covered in ash and running for their lives, said it all. 

Same World Trade

Two years before the attacks, my dad took me, my siblings and my grandpa to visit the World Trade Center. The World Trade Center felt like a ritzy mall. Everything seemed upscale and bright; the sunlight beamed through the glass facade of the tower at all angles. I was in awe. The World Trade Center felt “grown-up,” it wasn’t a place for kids.  But we did get to experience a helicopter simulator. My brother even had me believe that we were actually transported.

And now, on that Tuesday afternoon as we watched the terrible news in our living room, it occurred to me that this was the same World Trade Center where I had made fond memories with my family just a couple years prior. The same magnificent towers had been reduced to ash and rubble.

I was traumatized. I hadn’t experienced fear like this before. And a lot of my fear came from the fact that we were so close to Ground Zero. Our home was just 20 miles from Lower Manhattan, where it seemed like the end of the world was taking place. 

“Who did this? Is everything going to be okay?” I asked my parents.

My mom seemed the most concerned so I searched her face for an honest answer. 

 “It will be okay,” she assured me.

Lights Out

“That’s them,” my older brother said, pointing to a flag in our atlas with scorn. “That’s the nation that attacked us."  

It was the flag of Jordan. I glared at the flag for a moment. It quickly became a symbol of the enemy. Although the identities of the terrorists were yet to be ascertained, theories and misinformation about the hijackers spread quickly. There were even videos played on the news of people cheering in Islamic clothing.

Was this real or propaganda? How can people openly support such evil?

Our power went out that evening. There was a power outage across many of the Greater New York metropolitan areas affected by the damaged Manhattan power grid. We were without power for a day or two. I was frightened and in the dark, but at least the news was off. I think we all needed a break.

My mom lit a couple of candles and my dad readied his flashlights as the sun went down. Our house became black, still, and quiet. 

 “I’m tired,” my mom said in Akan, kissing her teeth.

Never Forget

For better or for worse, 9/11 made me more mature. It was the first time in my life where I realized that people in this world were capable of despicable evil and wickedness. It was also the first time I could see how fragile life was.

After that day, my biggest worries in life up until that point became more of an afterthought. I began to see that there were circumstances beyond even my parent’s control that could affect me, that could affect everyone. And even at the age of six, I couldn’t help but think:

“Is the world ending?”