The afternoon
of September 11, 2001, Valencia Community College chose not to dismiss its
classes. After my time at home watching the initial round of news coming out of
New York, D.C. and Pennsylvania, I had to go down to Kissimmee to meet my
afternoon 20th CE Humanities class.
When I arrived
at the campus, law enforcement had blocked off the circle in front of the main
entrance, a reminder of the grim events happening in our world. I hadn’t
expected anyone to show. But three stalwart students appeared at my door.
My classroom
had an enormous television screen mounted on a wooden frame. It was a holdover
from earlier days before monitors and white boards became the norm. The
students asked if we could simply watch the news and I readily agreed. A beloved
colleague, my office mate from down the hall, poked her head in and asked if
she could sit with us. I was only too happy to have her company.
And so we sat
and watched. The events got darker and darker until they reached a devastating crescendo.
People began jumping out of the windows of the towers. We could see them
holding hands, floating down like birds, tumbling head over heels and creating
a pink mist above the pavement below when their bodies were broken into pieces
upon impact.
It was ungodly.
That was when
my weeping began. My heart was absolutely broken. But I was not alone. The
three students, all young males, began to weep with me. My colleague, who loved
New York and visited whenever she could, began to sob.
I made no
attempt to direct any of our interactions that day. It was clear that I was not
in control of the events that we were encountering. None of us were. Indeed,
that presumption of living in a space where sanity and rationality dictated our
collective lives had been shattered.
I remember
thinking to myself, “Who intentionally flies a perfectly fine airplane into a
building?” But the deeper question lumbering beneath the first was much darker:
“Who can we trust? If people are willing to do something like this, what else
might they do?”
Our discussion
that day was erratic, erupting in short segments of words driven by terror. But
what I remember about that discussion was reminding my students and my
colleague that we were OK, that we had each other, and how grateful I was to
have spent that awful afternoon with them.
One by one,
they left the classroom in silence leaving me to shut down the television and
the lighting. It had been a long afternoon. But I had not had to face it alone.
And I will never forget my first tears over 9-11 that were shed that afternoon
along with those of my colleague and my three students.
If there was a
lesson we all learned that day, it was that none of us are rugged individuals. There
are no self-made men or women. We all became who we are thanks to the many
hands who have touched our lives over the years. This day was a case in point
that we need one another to be healthy human beings. For that lesson and those
who shared it with me, I will always be grateful.
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If the
unexamined life is not worth living, surely an unexamined belief system, be it
religious or political, is not worth holding. Most things worth considering do
not come in sound bites.
Those who
believe religion and politics aren't connected don't understand either. – Mahatma
Gandhi
For what
does G-d require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk
humbly with your G-d? - Micah 6:8, Hebrew Scriptures
Do not be
daunted by the enormity of the world's grief. Do justly, now. Love mercy, now.
Walk humbly now. You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are
you free to abandon it. - Rabbi Rami Shapiro, Wisdom of the
Jewish Sages (1993)
© Harry
Scott Coverston, 2026
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