Remembering 9/11

I was working at a middle school as the lead counselor, and had just reported to work at about 7:30 am. My husband was working for Dallas' ABC affiliate WFAA Channel 8 at the time...he was the chief editor for the morning show "Good Morning, Texas." He called my work at 7:48, just minutes after the first plane hit. He told me, "Go in the principal's office and turn on the TV NOW. Some plane just hit the WTC." I think we both thought it was some horrible accident, some light plane that was off course. I went in my principal's office and told him what was told to me, and we turned on the TV. We were watching it live when the 2nd plane hit. We were just horrified. Then, as we watched the news and the Pentagon was hit, we started wondering about what to do with this school full of 7th and 8th graders. Our superintendent called, and asked us to be sure that all the teachers kept their TVs off. Of course, that was next to impossible because every teacher was being informed of the horror by cell phone. We went room to room, trying to keep everyone calm and turning off TVs when we found them on, but it was just insane to try to keep them off. We then started fielding parent calls, and many parents came to pick their children up early. We had several students who had family in either NYC or at the Pentagon, and we had two teachers with parents or in-laws at the Pentagon. The students, overall, were remarkably calm and just sat in silence as the day's events played out. There were tears, mostly from faculty, and there was one moment, after flight 93 went down, when I had to go to my office alone for a while and cry. Normally quite stoic, I was pretty overwhelmed...but had to keep a brave face on for the students and for the teachers. I also took some time to call my mom and my sister, just to tell them I loved them.

I talked to my husband several times that day, and he said that the newsroom at channel 8 was just completely silent (very unusual) for a time. Then chaos ensued...and they were told that they might be working 24 hours shifts for a while depending on how things turned out. Thankfully that didn't happen, but there were some 18 hour days over the next week or so.

One thing I remember most vividly is that when I arrived at work and was signing in at the front desk, the principal's son (a 7th grader at the campus) and I were talking about the odd date... 9-11...and wondered what emergency might happen since it was an emergency date. I still get emotional just thinking about that conversation, only minutes before the first plane hit.