"Buildings were burning and people were dying."

http://media.islandpacket.com/smedia/2010/08/17/18/nwsSCHOOLBUS0818sw01.standalone.prod_affiliate.9.jpg

This isn’t the exact picture that I was searching for, but it’s meant to represent the school bus that I rode home on the afternoon of September 11, 2001.

The day is actually kind of hard to describe. Last semester I learned in psychology that 9/11 is an example of something called a “flashbulb memory,” which is basically when you still remember tiny details on a day when a horribly tragic event occurred. It’s been almost ten years since it happened, and most of us were only in fourth grade. I honestly don’t remember much from my elementary school years, yet I have such a clear memory of the events of that day, remembering details from before I ever even knew why everyone seemed so panicked.

Let me explain how the image of this bus relates back to the events of 9/11. In class that day, my teacher seemed preoccupied, but I wasn’t especially concerned by this. A parent stopped in at one point to pick up their child early, which wasn’t at all unusual, but then another parent came for their child. Then another, and another, and another. Almost two thirds of my class ended up being picked up, and I had no idea why.

When we were finally going home on the bus, it was eerily empty. That’s what I always think of when someone mentions 9/11; I think of stepping onto that bus that was usually so packed that we had to sit three to a seat, but on that particular day there were maybe ten kids at most, all unusually quiet. It was a strange feeling, like when you were in high school and walked down the hallways during the middle of class. It was so strange to see this big, empty space that you know should have been packed with people.

Anyway, we were leaving the school parking lot when a girl a couple of years younger than me asked the bus driver, “Where is everyone?”

I can still see his face clearly, the way it went completely ashy before the words came tumbling out of his mouth. “Parents just don’t think their children are very safe right now.” He seemed to really regret responding at all, but with a group of persistent children pestering him, he finally gave up a little more very reluctant information. “There was a terrorist attack in New York, and a lot of people died.”

Most of us didn’t understand the concept of a terrorist attack, but we got enough to understand that buildings were burning and people were dying. Even though I had the same bus driver for three years, even though he was about as friendly a guy as you could find in that job position, I never found out his name.

The next week when I boarded the bus, I was greeted by a new lady. I found out later that the bus driver had lost his job just because he tried to tell us kids what was going on.

I remember all of this, the little details of the bus, the tears on the back of the seat in front of me, the one window that always banged open, the boom of the bus driver’s voice as he told us every day, “Have a good afternoon! God bless.”

I guess the only strange thing is that I never remember feeling scared.

-Morgan Bernstein-