Sep. 11, 2008 - 9.11.01 through his eyes
Today my heart, mind and emotions have been like so many of you ... on 9-11 ... and I've seen post after post discussing the aftermath, the pros and cons of war, the axis of Evil and it takes me back to that moment ...
that moment was pre-homeschooling for us. I was in a room with 10 or so teen moms, 10 or so college-aged volunteers and responsible for the 10 infants down the hallway. Trying to decide how to best help these teenage moms process what it all meant ... trying to help these teens/early twenty college students make sense of the madness ... my teachers were reeling wanted to their children (one of whom was living just outside Washington, D.C. at the time), husbands, families ...
and I wanted mine. AJ was sitting in a kindergarten classroom 5 miles from me. And I couldn't get to him that very moment. The first glimpse he had of the towers falling was on an overhead TV that some teacher had turned on with subtitles ...
he could recognize the skyline of NYC because his favorite babysitter/person/woman in the world outside me was living there. And all he could eek out when we got him home was, "Is my Jenny okay?" A tiny little voice, He didn't know the name Osama or Saddam ... he didn't know that bombs contained more than water ... and he didn't know that fear could live so close to home. But what he did know was that he loved Jenny, Jenny's towers were falling down on top of people ... and he didn't know what to do. We prayed, we watched, we called Jenny's mom who assured us she was ok, in New Jersey, watching the flames from the top of her apartment building.
Why did they shoot an airplane at Jenny's towers mommy? Do you think they thought the towers were empty? Do you think they meant to hurt those people? Do you think some of those people were mommy's and daddy's? Do you think they'll come out from under the buildings?
I would turn the TV off and find it on with him in front of it again. So we watched, because we were compelled to watch. We prayed because we did not know one other thing that would help. We huddled close together on the couch, safe in Daddy's arms because it was the only safe place left in the world for that moment.
I don't know if the world stopped spinning or if putting a boot in someone's backside is "the American Way" ... but life is different. Our children live in a world where it isn't shocking to hear that 10 soldier died in Iraq today ... that another father, son, mother, daughter is headed into harms way ... and another procession is lead someone to their final resting place far too early.
Today isn't about terroism -
it's about innocence lost too soon,
lives lost too soon
and Jenny.