A_Day

I remember yesterday, my little brother asked me a rather strange question. He asked me “Why are there so many plane crashes in New York'” I asked him what he meant; he answered me “Well my friend told me that planes crashed into a river and ummm buildings too”. I asked him what he thought happened; he answered “I think the airplanes broke and then the pilots couldn’t control it” Now, flashback to around 10 years ago, the date, Tuesday September 11th 2001 I’m a five year old kid in senior kindergarten now. I wake up feeling quite excited, it was a sunny day, a perfect day for a second day of school with my new classmates (Unlike today, I actually enjoyed receiving an education). I go downstairs to eat my breakfast; milk and cheerios are my favourite. That morning, I took my time; after all I did wake up quite early. My mom tells me that we’re leaving in 15 minutes, I’m excited. I go upstairs and my mom helps me get dressed. We get in our car, a 1991 blue Corolla, even if the car is really old I still like it, blue is my favourite color. We start driving and heading towards my school, it’s a very long drive since we live in Toronto and my school is all the way in a town called Richmond Hill. When I’m in a car ride, my favourite thing to do is to look out the window. Today it’s a very nice day; there isn’t one cloud in the sky, I see a plane flying; how I always wanted to fly a plane (Being a pilot is still today for Lam2 me a career I may want to pursue). We’re exiting the highway now that means we’re halfway there. I look at the clock, its 8:46 I think we’re going to be on time. 8:46:30 Flight 11 crashes at roughly 466 mph into the north face of the North Tower (1 WTC) of the World Trade Center, between floors 93 and 99. My mom turns on the radio, she tells me she wants to know for how long the weather will be this nice. I see changing the channels to AM 680. I remember what my dad told me that I shouldn’t listen to that station because it gave “Bad News” (My parents are quite religious and believe media is a huge influence on children). I start asking my mom a question when she cuts me off, she says “Wait let me listen to this”. I listen to it too, all I hear from the radio is “We have unconfirmed reports that a plane has crashed into one building of the World Trade Center”. I asked my mom what happened and she explained to me that a plane crashed into a building. A plane crashing into a building, cool (No, not cool, over 3000 people died in the attacks and the event also prompted a war), wait until all my friends hear about this! I arrive at school just on time, its 9 o’clock. 9:03:02: Flight 175 crashes at about 590 mph into the south face of the South Tower (2 WTC) of the World Trade Center, banked between floors 77 and 85. We do the morning circle. We sing O Canada, we sing other songs and our teacher tells us what we’re going to do for the day. My teacher Miss Lina told us that the first thing we would be doing today is having our French lesson from Miss Margaux( I used to go to a private English school so our curriculum was different). I love it when Miss Margaux comes, she brings her puppets and we sing French songs with her. I look around the classroom and I see my best friend Amadeus was not here. I met Amadeus at the school’s summer camp and he ended up in my class this year. After Miss Margaux leaves, we have our math to do. Miss Lina is giving us easy questions because we just came back from our summer vacation. I look at the clock its 10 o’clock, I’m thinking to myself “C’mon Amadeus where are you!” 9:59:01: The South Tower of the World Trade Center begins to collapse, 56 minutes and 2 seconds after the impact of Flight 175. I’m doing my math right now, and oh boy, does Miss Lina think we’re babies! I mean like I’m 5 Miss Lina, I know what 10 + 8 is. I’m done my paper, it’s so easy! I wait for the others to finish. While I wait for the other people to finish, I’m thinking about what I’m going to tell Amadeus what happened, a plane crashed into a building how cool is that(Again, no it is not cool)! Amadeus is going to be like woah! Oh 10:30 its snack time, yay! 10:28:31: The North Tower of the World Trade Center begins to collapse I’m eating the carrots my mom prepared me when I see Amadeus walk in, I run up to him and I ask him where he went, he said he had a doctor’s appointment, but he wasn’t sick, why should he go to the doctor’s (There’s a thing called a check-up, you go to your doctor’s office once a year when you’re not sick to see if everything is functioning well)' I let him put his bag on his hook and I’m about to tell him about the plane that crashed when he asks me “Hey did you know like 3 planes crashed into different buildings and the buildings exploded'” Where did you hear that I ask, I only heard one plane crashed! He tells me he saw it on the television set at his doctor’s office. Woah, cool more than one plane, explosions, cool (The brain of a young boy thinks very weirdly)! Its 11 o’clock and we have free time. Amadeus and I grab the Lego’s and we build buildings, and of course we build planes, we spend our free time playing with the planes and the buildings (I have the feeling the other children were not aware of the situation that was happening in New York). One boy joined in and helped us build the towers and crash the planes (If any 9/11 survivors were too see this they would be deeply disturbed, boys re-enacting the event like it was something joyous, also presently, I myself am deeply disturbed by what I was doing…). After our free time, we were going to do some grammar. Reciting the alphabet, saying sentences, it was not fun. At noon, we stopped for lunch; I opened up my thermos and Oh goodie! My mom made me noodles for lunch! Our teacher left for lunch and our assistant teacher Miss Rosie was supervising us. Miss Rosie comes up to me and asks me where I got my thermos, Canadian Tire I answer proudly (I had an emotional attachment for my thermos, when it broke months later I started crying, I still have no clue why). Later during lunch, Miss Lina came back with her coffee and she was talking to Miss Rosie. I listen to the conversation, Miss Lina is talking about how terrorists crashed planes into the Twin Towers, and she seems very worried. Well I don’t make a big fuss about it as soon it’s our recess time. During recess we play our favourite game,hide and seek, and I’m it this round. I count to 5 and then I turn around, I see Amadeus hiding behind a post he is so silly, hiding behind a post. After recess is over, we have our naptime. I never understood naptime, I think it’s silly (No naptime is not silly, I now know that napping plays a crucial role in a child’s development, maybe that’s why I’m quite short now), so I stay awake all the time. After our long naptime Miss Lina introduces us to a journal. She says you write about things that you want in it, and it even has a place for you to draw, cool! What was interesting today…' Oh ya! The planes crashes, I write about the plane crashes and what happened, I think it is quite interesting and cool what happened (Around a year ago I found my journals from senior kindergarten, sadly I couldn’t find the September 11th entry, but I did write some pretty interesting stuff, for example, I wrote I would become a prime minister in the future and tried to convert my teacher to Christianity in one of my entries). After the journal entry, we only have one hour left of school, so our teacher makes us do some reading for the last hour. I pick up the Lion King, because I like lions. I read the part where Scar pushes the King down the cliff. I see Simba crying on the next page but I don’t get it. All I see is the King sleeping on the ground (I did not fully grasp the concept of death). I look at the clock, school is over already'! I wait for my parents to pick me up, I’m thinking of what I’m going to tell them about the plane crash. My parents arrive, I wave goodbye to Miss Lina and Miss Rosie. In the car I talk to my parents about what happened, they don’t seem to happy about me talking about the subject and tell me I shouldn’t worry about it (Again my parents are quite religious and did not appreciate the fact a 5 year old has heard “bad news”) Later that night when we’re eating dinner my parents are talking about something in their native language Creole, which I do not understand. They both seem worried, but I just keep thinking it’s just a plane that crashed into a building, and that it won’t happen again(In reality, Osama Bin Laden had plotted this attack to bring the “Holy War” to America for supporting Israel’s independence). Well after dinner, I play with my cars like a normal day, but I keep thinking about the look of my parent’s faces and Miss Lina’s face when they were talking about it. Something about this plane crash was not normal… Now that I reflect on that day September 9th 2011, I have realized how stupid and naïve I was as a child, it wasn’t just a simple “cool” plane crash, and it was the start of a new era in our history…