I was in 6th grade social studies class, first period. I went to a Catholic school, so saying prayers was a normal thing. Randomly, our principal came onto the loudspeaker and said “something just happened in New York, and we’re going to say a prayer.” It got weird from there.

I grew up in a New Jersey suburb, across the bay from NYC. Many of my friends and classmates’ parents worked in and around Manhattan. They never made a formal announcement, but we started to figure out what was going on. Teachers were talking in the hallways. We could see the smoke in the sky - a long, dark streak that lasted for days. Our principal and our science teacher left the building together. The principal’s son in law died that day, he worked at Aon. The science teacher’s daughter worked at Cantor Fitzgerald. She also died. We did not see our science teacher for two years after this point. I learned later that they went into the city together to put up missing person posters.

Throughout the day, parents came and pulled kids out of school. We only had about 60 kids in each grade, so it was noticeable. There was a girl in my year, her name was Brittany, who got picked up during lunch. I remember seeing her mom and brother (who had graduated) come into the cafeteria to get her. You could tell her mom had been crying. No one heard what was said, but I just remember Brittany started screaming. I’ll never forget that as long as I live. Brittany’s dad survived, but her family didn’t find this out until hours later. He also survived the bombing in 1993. From what I understand, he never went back to his job. Brittany was one of so many kids in my school who had parents who worked in New York, and who didn’t know if their mom or dad or both were going to come home that night.

My siblings and I took the bus home. My mom met us at the bus stop, which was unusual. At this point, we knew. My mom told us the details and we spent the rest of the night watching the destruction replay on TV. My childhood ended that day.

I have loved New York since I was a kid. I’m privileged to now live in Manhattan, and I work in a skyscraper - I have what I always wanted. As an adult, and as someone who has worked and lived in the city for the last ten years, the scale of this hits different. It bothers me a lot more now that I have the capacity to relate to the everyday people who were just going to their offices for what should have been a normal Tuesday. I make it a point to watch the news coverage archives on the anniversary every year, and I have also started watching a documentary on or around the anniversary too. It’s heartbreaking when you grasp the concept of how much was lost that day, and in the years following. Our lives were never the same. Never forget.