I will always remember this day 5 years ago. Tyler was just a little three month old fetus which means he was about the size of an avocado seed if I remember the stages of fetal development right. My alarm clock went off and I always push snooze. But this day five years ago, I knew immediately something was not right. Rob on Rob Arnie & Dawn's morning program was announcing that a small plane had just hit one of the towers at the World Trade Center. I saw the remote control on Shawn's side of the bed so I told him to turn on the TV. He never hears me in the morning, or if he does, he's thoroughly confused and incoherent. But this morning he did exactly that. We sat there rubbing the sleep from our eyes as the camera showed one of the Towers smoking with a big hole in it. How does a pilot of a small plane not see the huge tower, we wondered. Then right before our eyes, the second plane crashed into the second tower. And we knew it to be true. It was no accident. It was no small plane. What will happen next? We lay in our bed with hundreds of questions racing through our minds. Did we know anyone in NY? Did we know anyone flying that day? Where were they going to strike next? Then we watched one tower fall. Neither one of us had ever been to NY so we had no idea how enormous the towers were, nor did we realize how many thousands of people worked in them. As we watched it crumble, it hit me that I was going to be bringing a child into this horribly twisted world where terrorists attack America with our own airplanes. Our child would be born when America is at war. This baby would grow up in an unsafe, volatile state of global affairs unlike anything I've ever known before.
I think I grew up a lot that day. I had never cared much about global news. I subscribed to the newspaper but always skipped articles about stuff that wasn't "in my backyard." In fact, the primary source of my news came from Rob on that very morning show that woke me up that day. As that day stretched into weeks of searching for survivors, counting the deaths and honoring the heroes, my horizons broadened more than any other event could have caused them to. I used to think cops were power trippers, firemen were hot and military folks were uneducated. In this post 911 era I hold these people in a higher regard than any position I will ever achieve. I used to think about everything in terms of how it would effect me. Now I can see a much much bigger picture of which I am a merely insignificant speck. Now see how much of my fate really is out of my hands. The stories of the fallen heroes and lost family members who were working that day in the WTC are so profound, I hope Americans and most importantly, myself, never take life for granted the way I did before 9/11.
So last night Shawn was watching the tributes to the heroes, follow ups on the families of people who were killed, and whatever clips were on TV about that horrifying day. I was rounding up Tyler and Gavin getting them ready for bed when Tyler started asking questions about the sirens he heard and fire trucks he saw on TV. Was there an emergency? What happened? Why? I did my best to portray the seriousness of the situation while still trying to make him feel safe today in his own home. Shawn piped in now and then as I stumbled over my words looking for a good answer to all his questions. Boy am I glad I didn't have to come up with answers to such questions five years ago.
