High schoolers were told to go home. It was something that deeply befuddled us all. So, Arik and I met outside the front doors of the school and we walked home chatting about the announcement. We both were excited that school was unexpectedly cancelled but curiosity got to the both of us. When we got home, mom was crying and on the phone. We walked straight into the living room and looked at the TV. There were two buildings about the same height and structure pictured on the news. One of them had smoke flying out of it. Arik and I were very confused. We sat down on the couch, barraging our mother with innumerable questions about what was going on. Once she got off the phone she explained to us that one of America's most important buildings had been struck by a terrorist occupied passenger plane. What worried me was that there were people on those planes. We watched the live coverage as another plane flew into the other building and started another pillar of smoke that billowed upward into the atmosphere. We watched in silent horror as another plane struck the first building and another on the second. After about ten minutes, one of them collapsed onto itself, and not too long after the other one fell too. Mom was crying, we were too scared to do anything. I worried about dad because we knew that he worked for the government in some way. Arik and I didn't know what to do about mom. After the live feed had ended, we went to our rooms for a little bit and pondered about what had just happened. That day wasn't a happy day at all. It wasn't at all what we expected.

I don't remember much more after that other than our days on the playground. The rest of the year is a blur in my memories. I remember the protesters across the street trying to make sure that we didn't go to war with Afghanistan. What they didn't realize is that they had to take up their issues with President Bush. The army had no say in whether or not they were going to war with the Afghanies. The Germans were even protesting about it. The worst part was when the new year started and I had gone up to the fourth grade, my brother into the fifth, and later on that year my dad told us that he was deploying. He wasn't going to Afghanistan, he was going to a little country called Kuwait. It was the first time he would have been away from us for at least two months. I was and still am a serious daddy's girl. Because I couldn't have as much time with him as I wanted, it only made me want to spend time with him more. His leaving both affected my brother and I more than my mom would have liked. We watched him leave with teary eyes, and that night, my brother and I slept in my mom's room so she didn't have to sleep alone. We watched movies all night on her TV to distract us from the fact that my dad wasn't in the house for a while.
My brother and I were severely depressed while he was gone. I can faintly remember crying every night for two weeks until I realized that crying wasn't going to bring him back home.