I hate today.

Is it already nine years? That seems such a long time, but I remember like it was only yesterday.

9:01 am. I was eleven years old and mildly bored. It was in the middle of a fraction lesson. I wasn't paying attention because Kelly and I were working on accelerated math. We had covered this weeks ago. I was making faces at Tiffeny and wondering what was for lunch. It was a typical Wednesday up to that point.

9:03 am. The school lurched forward.

Jimmy, who as usual had been leaning back in his chair, fell over. Our eyes grew wide and there was silence for a moment. Mrs. Collier put her hand over her heart. Then excited chatter began, rising like birdsong at dawn. "What happened?" "Was that an earthquake?" "Will there be more?" "Cool!"

10:30 am. We were released to recess early and our teacher hurried to the principals office.

After recess, Mrs. Collier was pale and jittery. The 5th graders didn't leave for their fieldtrip. She told us There was an explosion downtown. Don't listen to the fifth graders. They might be talking about some kind of bomb but they think it was a problem with pipes and don't worry because we have called all your parents and they are okay.

I was concerned. My dad worked downtown and I hoped that the pipes hadn't hurt him but Mrs Collier said he was okay so I wasn't too worried. Teachers don't lie.

2:50 pm. Mom was early to pick us up that day. She never was early. Always late. The principle used to yell at Tom and I that if our mom kept being late we needed to be in after school care, but she only yelled at us, not our mom, so we never were. She didn't like us. But mom was early that day, and she had already picked up Mary from preschool, which was strange. But Mary had been at the library. Weeks later I would learn that people had called in a bomb threat at her preschool on that day. People do terrible things like that. People make mothers cry.

When we got home Mom rushed to the TV. There was a package for us from poppy and yaya but she didn't even notice. She had the lines on her face like when tom was bad or when her friend went away forever and she had cried for hours. Tom and I opened the package and we got stuffed animals. But Mom was in front of the TV with her hand over her mouth so I went to see what was on the TV. There was a building ripped open like it was made of paper, fiery and smoking like a demon belly eviscerate. What is happening? I asked but she turned off the TV and told me to play outside. She never let us watch TV when it was scary, but I wanted to know. Is that the pipes? Is dad okay? What pipes? Your dad is fine. That is far away from his work. The pipes. The pipes that made the school shake. There weren't any pipes. A bad man drove a truck in front of the building that had a bomb in it.

The fifth graders were right. And teachers sometimes lie.

Mom was crying. Lots of people were crying that day. Mary Tom and I joined them. Many peoples fathers and mothers, and worse, children, didn't come home that day or ever. One woman my mother worked with was killed by debris trying to help people. She had three kids our ages.

Even though our parents didn't want us to see, we saw. We saw what people are capable of doing to one another. We saw how evil can walk among us in human form. We saw how lives can change forever in a heartbeat.

We didn't understand though.

We still don't understand.

The entire state was caught in throes of grief and fury. We cried the hot angry wrenching tears of children. We cried for lives lost and destroyed, and we cried for our own slain innocence.

After a week the word survivor was replaced with victim. Words are important. My parents were so frustrated. They wanted to help, but Mom was only a social worker, and dad was an infectious disease physician which means he can only help people who need medicines and not people who were bombed. At first, the entire country was talking about us and sending people to help and money and supplies for the rescuers and the survivors, but pretty soon they forgot about us. People were still crying in Oklahoma though. I expect many still are. My heart cries with them.

We drove past the building on the way to Dads work in the weeks, months, and years after. The building sat there festering for some time. People looked on it in awe. For a long time no one wanted to take it down. It was an awesome sight, embodying catastrophe and pain. The building sagged forward, ripped open in the front like a jagged cross-section. You could see the floors on the inside. Though it was silent and solemn as a church near the building, the air seemed thick with the screams of the victims. Eventually the building was taken down, and a sterile serene memorial was built on the spot. But we will never forget. Could never forget.

168 people lost their lives nine years ago today. 19 of them were preschool children. They were all innocent, but it was a day that massacred innocence. A day of fire and smoke and death and fear and tears. So many tears. Remember today those lives lost. And remember that America can find terrorists without looking to foreign shores.