Tuesday Youth

If someone were to ask what was the most heart wrenching effect of September 11th 2001 it wouldn’t be far fetched to mention the children who were directly impacted. Thousands of children lost their parents in the attacks of September 11th and a handful of children actually lost their lives. Take a minute to look through the young eyes of the children who had the worse seat in the house on September 11th 2001.

Most people who were around to see the 9/11 attacks remember where they were and what they were doing at the time, including people like myself who were children at the time. Most children like myself were in class at our schools just getting our school day started as the attacks began. If you were a child who lived in New York City or the Washington area then your school day was cancelled and your school was hastily evacuated in light of the ensuing attack.

For children like 12 year old Caitlin Langone, 11 year old Rodney Ratchford, 7 year old Nicholas Lanza, 5 year old Fahina Chowdury, and 3 year old Anna Clare Burnett, the ensuing attack resulted in more than just a short school day or a class continuing with nothing else to focus on other than the crashes at World Trade Center and the Pentagon. These were the children who’s parents worked at the targeted US landmarks, were rescue workers who responded to the disasters and were even aboard the aircraft that were hijacked.

After being pulled out of class and being placed in the care of their next of kin these children were cursed with the heart wrenching revelation that their parents had perished in the day’s attack. Needless to say the remainder of their childhoods would prove most difficult and traumatic. Many of them struggled with finding their happiness again, some of them ended up involved in crime, others were placed in an uncomfortable spotlight and many found it hard to connect with others, including those who loved them. Many children who lost parents were mere infants or weren’t even born yet when their parents died in the attack, so they don’t even have any memories of them to recollect.

As if thousands of children losing their parents wasn’t bad enough, the reality that children were among the murdered on 9/11 made that Tuesday morning even more heartbreaking. A total of eight children were on three of the four planes that were hijacked that morning. Some of these children were traveling with their parents on vacation others were going on an educational field trip with their schools, all of them lost their lives. It’s bad enough that these children died and some of their parents were burdened with having to bury them, but it’s even worse that they had to die in such a heinous way while watching adults around them being murdered in their final minutes in this world.

A number of women who perished in the attack such as Lauren Grandcolas and Vanessa Lang Langer were pregnant when they died in the attacks, so we also can’t forget about the unborn babies who lost their lives before their lives even began.

What is the legacy of the children of 9/11? For the children of 9/11 victims, all of them have grown up to live extraordinary lives. They went off to college and the military and are married and have started families of their own. As for the children who perished in the attacks their families have kept their legacies alive by creating charities and scholarships in their names as well as sharing their stories with the world. Never forget that September 11th 2001 impacted even the most fragile lives on the planet. It’s a further testament of the full effect of that Tuesday morning.

~Dedicated to the children who lost their parents and their lives on September 11th 2001.