Third grade, in an NYC suburb in Connecticut—the tail of the state, as close to the city as you can get in CT.

They brought the whole school into the gymnasium to tell us a tragedy of disastrous proportions happened. The gravity of the situation was lost on us, until our principal slowly and carefully fed us the reality that an indeterminate amount of people died, close to home.

"Ok" I remember thinking, "people die like all the time every day."

And then, after being reminded, it dawned on us that at least 75% of us had one or both parents who work in that city. And then I remember thinking, "oh, my dad works in the city."

So they cancelled classes for the day, and sent us home as soon as one of our guardians came to collect us. One by one, kids started getting picked up, starting with those with stay at home parents, then people who had a parent who worked more locally. I was in this group—my mom worked in another city in CT and apparently shit was all sorts of fucked up so it took a really long time for her to get to the school.

It was surreal. We were in the cafeteria, and after the initial wave of pickups, it was like a lottery of who still had parents that day. Kids were crying, none of us knew what was going on, and i just held my sisters hand while we fought back tears. When my mom got us, there were about a dozen confused, crying grammar school kids left. It was the first time I saw her crying. My sister asked us if dad was ok, and she just said "I don't know. I don't know."

So we went home, and sat at the kitchen table and waited for news. My mom was pacing around the kitchen aimlessly. Some time after dark, my dad comes in with one of those SARS facemask things in his hand, got a plate, and sat down with us at the table. He ate quietly for a bit, then asked us about our day.

A handful of the kids in my school lost parents that day.