Math class was about to begin when our teacher ran into the room. “A plane has hit the World Trade Center,” she said as she switched on the television set that stood in the corner of every classroom. We were supposed to have a quiz that day, but it was swiftly forgotten as we spent the next forty-eight minutes watching the unthinkable unfold before us on the television screen. When the bell rang, we quietly rose from our desks and trudged to our next class, but by that point every television in the school was tuned to the news. The horror of the situation seemed to increase exponentially with each passing moment as the Twin Towers finally collapsed, the Pentagon burned, and rumors abounded of car bombs exploding throughout the capital. By the time I returned home, it was clear that thousands had died and life would never be the same again.
Looking back now, I think a whole era died on September 11. When I was a kid, there seemed to be a pervasive sense of optimism. Life seemed to be getting better all the time. The Cold War was a rapidly fading memory, and the booming economy brought prosperity to many. But that terrible Tuesday morning ushered in a new era, an era where the comfortable certainties of the past seemed like mere ghosts. The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have proven polarizing, both at home and abroad, and our victories there could still prove to be hollow ones. The economy is now more of a cause for worry than celebration, and unemployment remains stubbornly high. Our country faces a looming debt crisis, yet our politicians seem incapable of the sort of rational behavior necessary to confront it. With all this, it it any wonder that surveys show such pessimism? I think my generation is going to have a case of nerves that persists long after the economy recovers and the troops come home.
The “Dies irae” has been running through my mind all day as I remember the thousands who died. Its final words make a fitting coda for this post:
Pie Iesu Domine, dona eis requiem. Amen.
Codex Lochianus 