I remember...

Where were you when you first heard the news of 9/11?

I will never forget that day. I was getting ready for school. I was teaching a preschool special ed class. I had a 2 hour bus ride from one end Oahu to just outside of Pearl Harbor. I wanted to stay and listen to hear more and more, but I knew I could not miss that bus.

So, as I stepped on the crowed bus full of people who were from various Asian countries, the stillness was so over powering it was as if death rode with us. Usually there were words being spoken in languages I couldn't understand and laughter made the ride go more quickly. But not that day... silence...

I could see on the faces of the old women who sat in the front of the bus memories from other times of attack come flooding back to the present... it was so erie.

When my stop came, and I got off the bus... early in the morning... 5:30... I walked the 2 blocks to the school that sat right on Pearl Harbor... I seemed to have stepped back in time when this island of Oahu was attacked... there were flags in every window that I passed... how did they get there so quickly? The school was so still, the teachers' faces so blank... the children whom we taught were mostly military dependents... the questions on their faces... the helplessness... the vulnerability...

I will never forget that day....