I was in middle school when 9/11 happened. Sixth grade, started off like any other day; it was a Tuesday and we normally watched this Student News program. I remember that it didn’t run on time, and then the principal came in. We changed the channel and was watching the news. Soon enough we heard an announcement that told us all to go straight home (I was in walking distance from my school). I couldn’t go to my locker or nothing.
On the way home, I found myself searching the skies, seeing if they were gonna hit us too (I was in Philadelphia, PA not too far from NYC). It was wild how vividly blue the sky was, beautiful, but a continued source of fear for me.
I got home and saw my (then) stepdad staring at the TV. We stood there together, and watched the towers fall. It was so quite in our house, you could hear a pin drop. It was so surreal too. That’s something I’ll never forget, on that unseasonably warm day in September; with that breathtakingly clear blue sky.