In a School Garden on 9/11

Like the rest of us, I remember where I was on 9/11. I had arrived at Queen of Angels Catholic School in Roswell, Georgia, when the second plane hit. The first one was announced on the radio while I was driving there.
In a School Garden on 9/11
A choir sings during 13th anniversary ceremonies at the Flight 93 National Monument in Shanksville, Pennsylvania on Thursday. (Jeff Swensen/Getty Images)
Mary Silver
9/11/2014
Updated:
9/11/2014

Like the rest of us, I remember where I was on 9/11. I had arrived at Queen of Angels Catholic School in Roswell, Georgia, when the second plane hit. The first one was announced on the radio while I was driving there. 

The teachers and parents were developing a garden for wildlife on campus, and they invited me to visit in my official capacity as a National Wildlife Federation habitat steward.

We still did it; we walked around the grounds and identified the elements to provide food, shelter, water and a place to raise young. Those are what a certified wildlife habitat garden has to demonstrate. Beauty and balm for the soul are uncertified, but real, side effects.

They are what a functional civilization has to demonstrate, too. They are what terrorists try to disrupt. They did that in a dramatic way on 9/11, and some of them have been seeking to disrupt Western civilization ever since.

We worked through our consultation, looking at existing plants and the future landscape plans, touching the flowers, checking the dirt, talking about how teachers could incorporate the garden into science, art, literature, history, and math.

Then we went into the school lobby, where a high, wall-mounted television was on.

You know what was being shown. We watched in shock.

The best part about that day was how quickly the adults reacted when a line of small children was about to file through that lobby. No one wanted them to learn about this by seeing the towers coming down on TV.

It took quick thinking and climbing on a chair to shut the thing off.

It was a small gesture, but it was part of the same righteous mind that moved the heroic passengers on Flight 93 to die fighting. They wanted to protect the innocent.

Flight 93 was traveling from Newark, New Jersey, to San Francisco when al-Qaeda-affiliated terrorists took control, with the likely goal of crashing it into the White House or Capitol. The 9/11 Commission concluded the hijackers downed the plane in southwestern Pennsylvania as the 33 passengers and seven crew members revolted. Two other hijacked planes destroyed the World Trade Center in New York. 

The passengers were honored with a posthumous Congressional Gold Medal, the nation’s highest civilian honor, on Thursday, the 13th anniversary of their deaths. The medal will be displayed temporarily at the memorial in Pennsylvania through Sunday, and will be part of a permanent exhibit once the visitors’ center opens.

There is no easy way to come to terms with evil, and there is a lot of evil in the world. But confronting evil can let people show the good that was already inside them. The passengers of Flight 93, the first responders in New York and at the Pentagon, they were trying to help. I am grateful for them.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Mary Silver writes columns, grows herbs, hikes, and admires the sky. She likes critters, and thinks the best part of being a journalist is learning new stuff all the time. She has a Masters from Emory University, serves on the board of the Georgia chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists, and belongs to the Association of Health Care Journalists.
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