How could a set of catastrophic events change millions of people’s lives in such little time? The tragedy of September 11th affected people from New York to Hawaii and everyone in between. Over 5,000 people felt the direct effect of the act and millions of others felt secondary effects. This tragic event caused multiple emotions to come out of me. First was an immediate felling of shock and horror, then a sense of fear, followed by anger, revenge and patriotism.
A normal day, or so it seemed, I entered school. Almost immediately I could tell something was not right. It was in my second class period that I overheard that a plane was hijacked, and not until the third period did I find out the details and was told that the Twin Towers were gone. I was in a state of shock! I could not believe what I was hearing! All I could think about was how many people might be injured or killed. Many of my aunts, uncles and cousins work in Manhattan, not to mention my neighbors and my friend’s parents.
My first impulse was to reach my parents to make sure they were okay and get some reassurance that things would be all right. I really didn’t get that reassurance – my Mom said she was watching the Towers burn from her office window and she sounded very shaken. What really made me think of how a tragedy like this affects people was when I saw a good friend run out of school with tears in her eyes. Amid all the confusion, phone calls, students crying, praying, trying to get more details, announcements being made, I found myself not being able to handle all of these emotions at once. It was horrifying!
By fifth period my shock changed over to fear. I was informed of the attack on the Pentagon and was told there were still more planes in the air under terrorist control. What could possibly be worse than what had already happened? Now I feared for everyone on the East Coast and found myself thinking of family, friends and life, as I knew it. I also had a great fear of how the...