Remembering and Passing It On

I sat down this morning to watch some of the memorial videos that are on CNN.  Immediately my eyes filled with and I was transported right back to that day, 10 years ago.  The emotions are still that raw.  I can only imagine what it is like for the families of the victims. 

10 years ago I was 23 years old.  I was pregnant.  I had just found out two weeks earlier that I was having twins and I had just come home after flying to Chicago to spend Labor Day weekend with my family for my godson's christening. 

I was a first year teacher, teaching 8th grade in a rural school.  On the morning of September 11th, I drove to an Edison School training session.  The person leading the session insisted that we continue with our work instead of watching tv, even though we had all listened to the radio on the way to the training and knew what was going on.

10 years ago, the events of September 11th were unimaginable.

Every year since then, I try to find ways to appropriately talk to students about that day.  About what our nation lost, how we clung to one another, how we will never forget.  This year I used the books, Fireboat (Kalman) and The Man Who Walked Between the Towers (Gerstein).  It is my way of remembering and passing it on to the next generation.