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Collective Grief

Remembering 9/11. A personal reflection on grief, helping and a God who meets us in our helplessness.

Brenda McKenzie

9/12/20263 min read

person standing near lighted firetruckperson standing near lighted firetruck

Twenty-five years ago, I was a college student, a literacy coach in an elementary school, and a newly hired waitress at Cracker Barrel.

Like many Americans, I remember exactly where I was on September 11, 2001.

What I remember most, however, is not the news itself.

It is the people.

I was working in a second-grade classroom when word began to spread among the teachers. Their faces changed almost instantly. Some held themselves together better than others, but I recognized the look. It was the same haunted expression I remembered seeing when the Challenger shuttle exploded during my childhood.

The adults understood something terrible had happened.

The children did not.

The school went into lockdown. Recess was canceled. Parents called the office. Administrators tried to decide what to do next. The second-grade teacher I worked with carried on with remarkable composure, and together we focused on the children in front of us.

By afternoon, I was helping in a kindergarten classroom with a substitute teacher who was struggling to hide her distress. So I did what I have always done in a crisis: I compartmentalized. I watched the people around me and looked for ways to help.

I smiled. I redirected. I reassured.

For several hours, I was so focused on protecting others that I almost forgot anything had happened at all.

At that point, I still thought it was a tragic plane accident.

The reality did not fully sink in until I stopped for gas on my way home.

The lines stretched into the street. Prices had jumped. I remember feeling irritated before suddenly realizing that this wasn't about a plane crash.

Something much bigger had happened.

I turned on NPR and listened as the pieces began to come together.

When I finally got home, the weight of it all settled in.

I sat alone in front of the television and sobbed.

I felt helpless.

For perhaps the first time in my life, I had no suggestions, no solutions, no comforting words. There was only grief.

I wanted to talk to someone, yet I didn't want to talk to anyone.

So I went to Cracker Barrel.

I wasn't scheduled to work. I simply wanted to be somewhere familiar. I wanted to hear dishes clatter and coffee pour. I wanted the comfort of ordinary conversation. The restaurant was busy that evening, and looking back, I think many people wanted the same thing.

We needed each other.

In the days that followed, the news shifted. The focus moved from the horror to the helpers. Firefighters. Police officers. First responders. Ordinary people who acted with extraordinary courage.

That is what I remember most.

Not fear.

Not politics.

Not outrage.

I remember people turning toward one another.

I know memory can soften the edges of history, but when I think about those days, I remember a nation grieving together. I remember people searching for something larger than themselves. I remember a longing for hope.

This week I heard Dolly Parton's song "Hello God," written in the anguish that followed September 11th. Listening to it transported me back to that season. The questions in that song are not confined to one tragedy. They are the questions people ask whenever they reach the limits of their own strength.

Where are You, God?

Do You see us?

Will You help us?

At the time, I was not a practicing Christian.

Yet when I look back now, I can see God's provision woven throughout that difficult day. Not in dramatic ways. Not through easy answers.

Through people.

Through community.

Through the quiet comfort of not having to carry sorrow alone.

Twenty-five years later, I still notice something about myself. In a crisis, I become calm. I focus. I help. I carry what I can for the people around me.

And then, when it is finally safe, I feel everything.

Maybe some of you are the same way.

If so, perhaps the lesson isn't that we should stop helping. Perhaps it's that eventually we must allow ourselves to grieve too.

The helpers need healing.

The strong ones need comfort.

And the God who sees the brokenhearted has never forgotten either.

https://youtu.be/VvgHfqXHS-8?si=NcL0q0Cm5Jh8vUxg