One Decade.

This was written in September 2011

Thursday morning, the baby and I were playing on the floor, with the TV on in the background (it was National Geographic's show about baby animals, mostly there for background noise for me), a commercial for a program about 9/11 aired.  Images of the twin towers collapsing were shown and my son stopped what he was doing and watched.

And then I saw it.  All over again.  But, for the first time.  A terrorist act, through my child's eyes.

I quickly shut off the TV and encouraged him to continue to play, but I couldn't stop my mind from wandering.  M will know this event as something from the past, before he was born, "ancient" history.  The stories won't come with the initial shock that shook the rest of us.  M will have the concept that people did fly planes into buildings.  It could happen.  It's not unfathomable.

Every year I learn something new about 9/11.  I was 17 when it happened, I made a concerted effort to watch the news and stay in touch with the world and politics prior, I understood what a terrorist was, and that we were being attacked, but I was still naive.  When I saw the news that morning, I told my dad with a hopeful heart that helicopters would come and rescue the people in the top floors.  Right, Dad?  He just sort of sadly grimaced.  My mind came up with a million excuses to tell myself the death toll would be limited.

As news came about the Pentagon, my mom told me that she thought that part of the building was under construction so the fatalities there were minimal.  I breathed a sigh of relief.  Years ago I learned that wasn't entirely true.  At all.  Even though I don't remember how I was acting, my mom says I was very emotional.  This was said in effort to protect me.  How will I protect my son?

My brother criticized me for not knowing this, but I recently learned that children were victims in 9/11.  I didn't know that, but maybe I didn't want to know that.  Again, we were watching the National Geographic channel just the other day and they aired a tribute to a few kids and representatives that were killed on one of the flights from 9/11 that were from NG on their way to some sort of field trip.  Later that night, I flipped on the show "I Survived..." while I graded some papers.  I like hearing the courageous stories of instinct and survival as people escape wildfires, bank robbers, and mountain lion attacks.  Not so much the stories of violence and torture.  It happened to be a 9/11 edition.  I started to look for something else, because I knew I probably couldn't "handle" these stories.  While I scrambled through the guide searching for Sex and the City, Friends, The Office, Cheers, anything... a high ranking military official described finding "things" in the Pentagon and gathering them up so their loved one's would have something to identify them with.  He described finding something very small that belonged to a very small child in great detail.  I sobbed.  What. the. fuck.

My thoughts of being in the victim's shoes are gut wrenching.  They literally make me ill.  The choices, decisions, that were made that day.

And one day I'll have to explain this to my son.  I'll look in his sweet innocent eyes, and I'll have to tell him that evil exists, hate is alive, not in a Batman movie, not in a bitter grasshopper in a Pixar film, but in people just like you and me.  I'll watch that sweet innocence leave his eyes, his heart, his soul.  He'll know that we live in a world where hate is real. And feels unstoppable.  But, it's not.

We have love.

And we have today.

So, today we have to love each other, the differences, the annoying parts, the silly parts.

We have to, just so we can get to tomorrow.

My cup runneth over

Does anyone ever feel like this?

Or is it just me?

My baby throws his arms around my neck,

Plants an open mouth kiss, straight on my check,

There's teeth, and slobber, and drool

and LOVE.

Gosh, are you serious!?  What did I do to get this lucky?