“Where were you when the world stopped turning...”

I was in my fifth year teaching high school Spanish. My son had just begun third grade.

It was first period still, Spanish III. My sophomores. The custodian came to my classroom, frantic, and said turn on the television.

I don’t have one.

Go to my room.

I can’t leave my students.

I’ll stay here.

I went. I watched as the second tower was hit.

And then, they seemed to implode. No crumbling. Just there one second, gone the next. Dust and ash.

Along with so many souls that day and as a result of that day.

For some reason, we had a fire drill. I stood a little apart from my students to call my son’s school. (I had a cell phone! It was my first one. How fortunate we were. Are.) I needed to confirm that they were staying open. They were. But, my son watched as so many frightened parents picked up their children as he remained behind, wondering why his Mommy didn’t come early to get him. It broke my heart when he told me that. I hated that I was keeping someone else’s children safe and secure while my own felt, albeit briefly I’m sure it felt like forever, abandoned.

I called my husband who was in India at the time. I wished him home and close and not two plane rides away.

I tried to call his brother who worked in the area of the World Trade Center.

All systems are busy. Please try your call again later.

I called my mother.

All systems are busy. Please try your call again later.

We went back to class. We didn’t even try to continue as if nothing had happened. I actually have no memory of how we got through the rest of the school day. There were a lot of tears. Although no one’s parents were lost that day, many were left wondering for hours.

Some students went home, but most stayed. We, the faculty and staff, stayed with them. We talked a lot. We hugged a lot.

The next day and for months to come, there were so many stories about how lucky my mom/dad/husband/sister/brother/wife/ uncle/cousin/neighbor/friend/friend of a friend was that she/he missed the train/bus and arrived to mayhem, black smoke and no place of work.

Or, left home late and got stuck in traffic and watched from some highway across the river as his/her place of work became a cloud of black smoke.

Or, did manage to escape and then found themselves covered in soot and surrounded by hysteria as people tried to run away from the epicenter of death.

There but for the grace of God.

Never forget became a rallying cry that immediately made me wonder if that is the same mantra of all peoples around the world subjected to foreign bombs and bullets.

It was my last year teaching full time.

At the end of the school year, a teacher shot a bullet through his head.

I resigned my full time position and became a part time teacher.

The following year, a student hung himself.

The year after that, a student took enough drugs to satisfy a roomful of addicts.

My tenth year as a Spanish teacher was my last. After crying every day to and from school, I turned my focus to the administrative side of foreign language test and curriculum development, particularly for various arms of the US government: defense, foreign service and Peace Corps.

Use your words.

It is only as I write this that I see the thread that links these events and a series of my life decisions to that September day.