“I was in high school. It was my senior year. I was . . . breaking into my history teacher's desk to steal a test that I hadn't studied for. And he walked in, and he was crying-- he couldn't care less what I was doing. And . . . that's when I found out. So I . . . I talked to him, that . . . that stolen test in my hand . . . and we both just sat and . . . we cried.”
“I was working. It was, uh . . . before school. Coffee shop. Everyone was just staring at the TV. No one said a word. The cook came out to watch with the rest of us. I still remember the smell of food burning on that grill.”
“I was nine. I'd gotten in the way of my stepfather . . . hitting my mama. Then he stuck me with some scissors. My mama wanted to take me to the hospital. But my hurt didn't seem like nothin' . . . after we heard what happened.”
“I was at morning prayers. I didn't believe that day. I didn't believe in anything that day.”
“I was out with my aunt. From that morning for the next few days . . . My uncle was a firefighter in New York. He never came home.”
Those words came from the mind of a writer for the television series “Bones”, meant to be spoken by the five interns who were working to identify a man who died as a result of his efforts to save employees at the Pentagon, but they could just as easily have been uttered by any one of tens of thousands of people on September 11, 2001. We were in school . . . we were at work . . . we were in the middle of a violent argument . . . or at church . . . or waiting. Waiting for someone to return who never would.
I was getting ready for work when I walked through the den and by the television. What I saw stopped me in my tracks. I sank to the sofa and watched, horrified, as the second plane hit the towers . . . and then as they collapsed. I listened in fear as they told of the plane hitting the Pentagon . . . of a fourth one still in the air, possibly headed toward Washington, D.C. And I begged God to make it stop. When my daughter got home from school, I asked her if they watched what happened. Only during homeroom. Then the TV was turned off and life went on as though it was just another normal day. I couldn’t believe they were not allowed . . . were not required. . . to watch history being made.
That’s my story, and twenty-three years later, I can still recall every vivid, heart-rending detail as though it was yesterday. We all have our story of September 11, 2001, and it’s a story that will be forever etched into our memories.
As it should be.
About the author: Lisa Shackelford Thomas is a fourth-generation member of a family that’s been in funeral service since 1926 and has worked with Shackelford Funeral Directors in Savannah, Tennessee for over 45 years. Any opinions expressed here are hers and hers alone and may or may not reflect the opinions of other Shackelford family members or staff.
