Remembering September 11


It's hard to believe that 15 years have passed since 9/11.  Adella was several weeks shy of her third birthday that day, and we seldom had the TV on then.  I had a lousy cell phone that I kept in the car for emergencies.  The world beyond our little town in the Connecticut woods was far away every day as we enjoyed sunshine and, cool air, and pretty spaces.  Adella and I went to the public library that day for a children's program, and the other mom's there were whispering about a terrible accident at the World Trade Center.  I got the drift of the news and drove away after the library program to put off the inevitable discovery of how our world had changed for the worse that day.  I put out a blanket at a nearby state park and watched Adella napped for a while.  

What a luxury:  to put off the bad news, the horrible truth, the unchangeable horror, the desperate realization that people can be persuaded to do horrible things to innocent people in the name of some misunderstood, misinterpreted myth.

Tonight  I am thinking about the people stuck inside that tower who did not have this luxury while they worked to create good lives for themselves and their families.  That's it.  Adella and I visited the same park a few times this summer, and we enjoyed the company of lone swimmers, grandmas and their grandchildren, parents and their sons and daughters being together in a beautiful place that the people of Connecticut have provided for each other.

My beautiful girl has gone off to college at Eastern Connecticut on a full academic scholarship, courtesy of the taxpayers of Connecticut.  Already, she has made friends, joined clubs, and received instruction that she appreciates because it challenges her to stretch her thinking.

We are ordinary people living ordinary lives in an extraordinary state that is a part of an amazing experiment in cooperation.  We don't always get it right, and I don't love everything (example:  this ridiculous attempt to run roughshod over the Sioux in an attempt to move oil across the northern Midwest.  Not cool and not acceptable.), but that doesn't change the fact that we are the best game around.  Kindness prevails.

My heart goes out to those 9/11 families whose loved ones were stripped of their loves in the name of fanaticism.   

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2 Comments

  1. it is a time for reflection on the 9-11 events in our own lives-those sudden events that shake your foundation and stop you in your tracks...bring you back to basics-family, home, country and beliefs in God. i've been journaling about the last 15 years and events in our family that were challenges for each of us.

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  2. Thank you Sandy. I'm so in awe of your writing it is nearly impossible for me to comment. Just thanks!

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