Belated Thoughts on 9/11

My son turned 5 this year. Five years old.

The five-year anniversary of 9/11 was this week. Five years.

That's how I'll always know the anniversary. I was nursing a newborn baby less than two weeks old when my friend Susan phoned and a few minutes later my mom, both with the same panicked message: Turn on your TV right now! They knew I wouldn't be watching. They knew I'd be cycling through the usual routine of feeding, burping and changing my newborn baby boy. I rarely took time to watch the morning shows, and they knew it.

Susan said she had a premonition of sorts. She hadn't watched any morning shows for over a week because of her schedule, but something inside of her told her to switch it on.

I flipped it on and watched, cradling my newborn, rocking him to sleep during the eerie chaos and horror of television coverage.

Eventually I called in my older children, who weren't all that old. I told them that they were going to see something scary that just happened far away from our house, but it was a big event. They should know about it, because people would be talking a lot about it. They came in and watched. They asked questions; only a few could I answer. Most were questions impossible for me to answer then...questions I'm barely able to answer today. They asked details about the planes. Who was flying them? Why would they run them into a building? Did anyone die? They wondered why. I don't remember what I said, but I remember the dilemma of being honest while not filling them with dread.

Meanwhile, we had our own family concerns. My mother-in-law was flying to the United States from Europe. She was in the air when the historic decision was made to halt all flights and land all those in transit. Her pilot landed in Canada, where she was cared for by the generous people of St. Johns, but there were hours of confusion and concern as we tried to locate her. She was able to borrow someone's cell phone long enough to let us know she was alive and in Canada. The city set up an extremely efficient emergency set-up with phones lined up on tables for people to use free of charge to contact family and friends. They brought toothbrushes and toothpaste as well as clothes for passengers to borrow--all checked luggage was sealed off in the belly of the plane. No one could get to their stuff.

The Canadian citizens brought food and showed them around the city. Gracious and kind, they sacrificed for strangers, providing a powerful contrast to the events that pulled them together. The evil and destruction that prompted planes to land unannounced on the landing strips of their otherwise sleepy airport couldn't hold back the goodness possible in the human spirit.

Countless stories in New York overshadow the simple ladling of soup and grab bags of sweaters and blankets offered from the people of St. Johns. Still, it's another story. And with stories, we remember.

It's not my story so much as my mother-in-law's, however. My story still left me sitting on my bed, staring at the television, while three of our children played in the living room, and the new baby, fed and content, lay sleeping on a pastel fleece blanket spread out on the carpeted floor.

On Monday of this week, our three older children participated in a special service at their school. The choir sang two songs. One was called "I Remember." When the choir director first introduced the song during class several weeks ago, she asked if they remembered anything from 9/11. My oldest remembered coming into the bedroom and seeing the towers fall. The second had a vague recollection. The youngest of the three had no memory of it.

We talked about it in the car on the way home from school that same day.

"Was I scared?" my five-year-old boy asked.

"No," I said, "no, you were just a baby. You had a full tummy and slept through the whole thing."

"Oh. So I wasn't scared?"

"No, you were safe with us," I assured him. "Your mama was holding you and your sisters were nearby. There was no need to feel scared."

They reflected on this as we drove along. I did, too. Always intending to be honest with the children, I struggle with how to reassure them. After all, people died that day. Families wept. People were grieving five years later on Monday as the names were read.

My eldest broke the silence. "That's why I don't like to fly," she said. She was the one who remembered the most.

"They've made all kinds of changes in the airports and airplanes now," I said. "They've made it really safe for us to fly. That's why we can't meet Grandma or Grandpa at the terminal anymore. It's one of the changes they made to keep us all safe."

She nodded slowly. I doubt if it was very comforting, because she can't help but remember.

We all remember not just the day, but the way it changed us.

Whenever flight patterns shift for our airport and planes fly low over our house, I think about 9/11. I wonder if that plane is going the direction it's supposed to go. I try to reason with myself--of course it's going the way it's supposed to go. I try to ignore the uneasy concern, but I can't. Because, like my eldest daughter--like all of us--I remember.