Literary Magazine
September 11th, 2001 — A. Stokes, Youth Participant, CSP Program
It was a beautiful September day in the year 2001, six days after my ninth birthday. I was in school and it was lunchtime. There was a huge panic. My friends were saying there were ninjas on the roof.
The next thing I knew, my principal had come to pick me up from the cafeteria and brought me back to the office. Waiting there for my arrival was my grandmother from my mother’s side of the family. Walking through her neighborhood towards her apartment building, she was briefing me about the situation that had really occurred.
While watching the news, I learned more. A plane had hit one of the World Trade Center towers. My mom worked down the block from it and my step-dad worked in the World Trade Center. He had attended work that day. Unfortunately, he was stationed in the basement of the first building to receive damage from a plane. I was nervous.
Later that evening my step-dad was stating that it was like an action movie, with fire and falling buildings, smoke and debris. My mother, on the other hand, worked for the government at the time, for an agency known as GSA in the Alexander Hamilton United States Custom House. Both my parents were safe and once again able to protect their offspring.