Home is Where the Heart Is?

As I sit here today, and watch as the T.V replays the pictures and videos from 9/11, I recall my own experience on that day very clearly.

  I was sitting on the floor of my first grade classroom playing with blocks. It was the first week of school and I was enjoying my new life in Chicago. All of a sudden my teacher, Mrs.Reynolds, got a call. Immediately, a look of horror took over her face and she rushed across the room to turn the T.V on. I remember looking up and being so excited that my teacher was going to let us watch a show. But, when I turned my face upwards and saw the horror playing, I was stunned. I watched as smoke billowed out of the first tower. And then, watching the live T.V, I can still clearly remember seeing how at 9:03 on that tragic day, the second plane hit the towers. I recall someone saying that it was no accident.

After that, our school lined us up in the hallways and had us sit and wait until our parents arrived to pick us up. I was surprised to see my dad waiting for my sisters and I at home, but then he told us how  much of the buildings in the city had evacuated in the case there was going to be an attack in Chicago. I remember the terror that crossed my mind, as the thought that my home and the people I love could be destroyed.

It's also important to know at that point, I had only lived in Chicago for about two or three weeks. After 9/11 I thought (as a naive first grader) this was the kind of thing that happened in the U.S and that it was in no way a safe country. All I wanted to do was go back to the security I had felt living in Hong Kong and Singapore.

I never really thought that 9/11 had that much of an impact on my life. But over time I have come to realize it has made a big difference. I have not viewed America as my home since the day before 9/11. It's not that I don't feel safe in America or even that I don't feel a strong sense of nationalism toward the country, because I do, but after that day I never thought that we would stay in the country. Yet I have been here for ten years, and it is still not my home. I believe that my home is wherever the people I love are, and because of that I have less concerns about moving than most people. I believe that as long as I have the people I love near me and I can communicate with friends I'll be fine anywhere in the world. People say that I was too young to understand the full impact of 9/11. And maybe I was. But it definitely did have affect on me and not only the way I view the world, but also how I view what a home really means. Because of 9/11, a home will only be a physical shelter for me.