Ten years ago I set me alarm clock to wake me and my now husband up an hour and a half later then normal. You see we had Senior pictures this day and our appointment was in third period so we decided to skip the first two classes and meet our friend Catie for breakfast before our pictures. But instead of getting up to our alarm we woke up to a frantic mother, at first we thought that her panic was a result in our over sleeping, but then she informed us that a plane hit one of the towers of the WTC. My only reaction was "what" as we walked into the living room to watch CNN for updates, with hope that it was an accident. Then the second hit... with fear in our hearts we proceeded to finish getting ready for school and our breakfast date. We meet Catie and discussed all the possibilities for what was going on, but really we had no idea what to expect when we walked down the narrow hallway into the common area of our high school.
It was eerily silent as we headed to a classroom we had entered 100's of times before, and the only place we thought to go. Our newspaper room, we found a classroom of 30 english students glued to the news and our advisor sitting in the back clutching a tissue with tears running down her face. She asked where we were suppose to be, we looked at her confused, and after a second of exchanging glances we stated we weren't sure, but we wanted to stay with her. It felt safe there, after spending the better part of the our high school career in this room, reasoning with other teachers to let us miss their class to spend that time working on our stories and countless hours after school working on layout, most nights until we were kicked out by the last of the staff. She tearfully told us to go do our pictures and come back if we wanted she no longer had lessons planned for her remaining classes. She also informed us that we could go home, that a lot of students were leaving early.
We did as she told us and headed three doors down to do our pictures only to return 45 minutes later. We walked into an almost empty classroom, the only students present were fellow our fellow newspaper staff and our advisor. After a few minutes she pulled my friend Justine and myself aside, she informed us that we were witnessing history in the making and we needed to go capture some images of reactions and quotes because it was going to be important. Not only as real world learning experience, but moments that were going to change the world we live in.
Justine grabbed her notebook and pen and I headed to my locked cubby to grab my SLR, on loan from the school of course. As we walked down the halls of our quiet school, you could feel it in the air. We discussed how we were going to do this, we knew it was important, but we both admitted to pits in our stomachs as we turned the knob to the first classroom. Most of the teachers were welcoming, the students willing to give quotes on what they were witnessing and I was able to capture the reaction of my fellow classmates.
Later that week we were approached by our advisor again, she informed us that a reporter from the St. Petersburg Times contacted her to see if any of her staff covered the tragedy. And the reporter took quotes from Justine and a photo from me from their own story. We were touched that a big paper wanted to write a story to show the point of view from a Senior in High School. Click Here for the story (now the writer got that facts mixed up and used the wrong name in the story, and a correction was printed two days later. :( I was bummed at the time, but in the bigger picture I learned so much from the experience.)
Fast forward 10 Years...
On this day I woke up not to an alarm, but to my baby boy yelling mamamamama over the monitor. A great and very normal way to wake up in my house. The next few hours were challenging due to very sleepy children and their refusal to nap. After finally giving into the idea my daughter woke up with an apology and an admittance of crankiness. Silly little lady :)
We went through the day playing and watching cartoons until the time came for me to go to work.
I was heading to a session at Honeymoon Island. My clients were the cutest family a photographer could ask for. I love watching the interactions between a mother and father and their children, it's magical to watch.
After settling down on the couch to cuddle with my hunny and babies, I realized how different the day was 10 years earlier and how thankful I am to the people who serve our country and my thoughts go out to the people that lost their loved ones tens years ago. And how amazing it is that after ten years we, as a country still stand together and send our love to all effected by this tragic event.
