Straddling the line between memory and history

A 22 year-old’s reflections on growing up in the long shadow of 9/11

For my parents, the 9/11 attacks are squarely memory; for my siblings, they’re firmly in the realm of history. I fall somewhere between those poles, in a liminal space without the direct memory people expect of me.

My fourth birthday was less than two weeks before September 11, 2001. By then, my family lived in San Diego, California, though I was born near Washington, DC. The attacks were very early in the morning in our time zone, but my dad had already gone to work. My brother, just 10 months old, always woke up early, so my mom also woke up early. Her father, my grandfather, was in town visiting us. I think he and I were the only two in the house who were still asleep as the news broke. My mom woke up my grandpa when she turned on The Today Show, after the first tower collapsed but before the second, and realized what was happening.

I don’t have firsthand memories of that Tuesday. This has always confused me somewhat, because I do have memories from preschool. My lack of memory may be a testament to how well the adults in my life shielded me from the trauma they were experiencing. If I registered the day as anything out of the ordinary, I probably would have remembered it — after all, I remember the day one of my classmates threw sand in my face on the playground. Surely something as dramatic as watching planes crashing into buildings would have seared itself into…