I was in grade school on Sept. 11, 2001. I and my two brothers were homeschooled, and I think I was in the school room in our house when I heard the TV in the living room turn on.
That was an odd occurence. The TV never was turned on until after the school day was over, and often only after dinner. So I headed to see what was going on.
My mom was on the phone with her sister, who lived near Baltimore. The news was on. A second plane flew into one of the twin towers. The world changed.
There was fear, a sense of vulnerability I’d never felt before. Then, there was hope, as our country largely put aside our differences and realized there is far more that unites us than divides us. We began the long process of healing, even as we prepared for a global war on terror that has lasted almost two decades.
The evening of Sept. 10, I visited the Arkansas 9/11 Memorial here in El Dorado. As the sun set, I reflected on the names, the timeline, the words engraved in granite. We Will Never Forget.
I know I won’t.
There are two videos from StoryCorps — a nonprofit that works to preserve and share people’s stories, with the goal of building connections between people and creating a more just, compassionate world — that I always watch on Sept. 11.
The first video is titled “She Was The One.” It tells the story of Richard Pecorella and his fiancé Karen Juday, who worked on the 101st floor of the North Tower of the World Trade Center. Richard says he fell in love with Karen almost at first sight, that she helped him transform from a frustrated person to a calmer, more thoughtful man. They spent as much time together as possible, and Richard could see the Twin Towers from his office building.
On Sept. 11, Karen was killed. A co-worker told Richard the Twin Towers were on fire, and he turned to see smoke billowing. He threw a chair at the window.
“I miss her eyes,” Richard says. “Her eyes sparkled to me. One day they were blue, the next day they were green… Karen, I’ll always be in love with you, and I will see you again.” Richard was reunited with Karen in February of 2016, when he passed away.
The second video is “Joe and John.” Retired New York City firefighter John Vigiano Sr. lost two sons in the 9/11 attacks: John Jr. was a firefighter and Joe was a police detective. His two boys called him when they started their shifts that evening/morning as usual, and John Sr., as usual, told them he loved them.
“I love you, too,” they each told him.
“I wouldn’t have changed anything,” John. Sr. says. “There’s not many people that the last words they said to their son or daughter were ‘I love you,’ and the last words they heard was ‘I love you.’ That makes me sleep at night.”