people don't get it

people don't know what it was like to be so close to 9/11. they think they know, they talk about it like it affected them, but they don't know. they don't know what it was like to see football players running crying down the hallway because their fathers were in the towers, or to babysit for little girls who tell them their daddies are ghosts for halloween. to see people waiting, praying, and finally holding memorial services because they never found them. to see teachers crying, desperately dialing on their cell phones trying to talk to their husbands who aren't answering. to see the smoke across the sound. to experience the eerie quiet in the city that never sleeps, and see the giant hole in the ground that was still being searched for bodies. to finally, for the first time ever, feel grateful that my dad was laid off, that he wasn't in the city that day. to wander around the school, pondering going to class but realizing nobody else will, not even the teachers. to walk out of school, nobody stopping us, to drive around town and listen to the silent radio with the djs crying, to cry with them and wonder what is happening to my city and how many people my town has lost. they just don't get it.

i know that 9/11 affected everyone, the whole country, the whole world. rationally, i know that. but i can't help but feel just a little angry when i hear people talk about it, people who were so far away from it that they only remember watching it on tv in the classroom like it was some hollywood blockbuster or an episode of law & order. it's not the same as it was for us.