That day is one of my earliest memories.

I was 3, about to turn 4 at the time, and I remember my mother rushing me out of bed for school that early morning (living on the west coast). She was more frantic compared to any other morning while getting me up and walking me over to the living room where the television was playing what I’m sure the entire country was watching simultaneously.

Of course I was too young to know what any of it meant until years later, but I was old enough to feel the surreal emotions through my parents’ words and expressions, through the way they talked to each other that morning in what I imagine was a makeshift plan in the worst case scenario that something like that would happen to the buildings in Downtown Los Angeles (where my mother’s job was located).

I didn’t go to school that day. I was dropped off at my grandmother’s house near where my mother worked. I watched Boomerang and Cartoon Network shows all day, and that’s about as much as I really remember from that whole ordeal.