In remembrance...

Today was 9/11.

The new day that will live in infamy.

I tried not to think about it today, but I have kids who were just babies when the planes crashed into the towers.  This is the first year they, especially Xander, had questions.

He wanted to know what happened. He wanted to understand, if such a thing is possible, why other human beings would do something so horrible.

He is only slightly obsessed with the military, weapons, soldiers, terrorists etc.  He wants to become a mechanical engineer so that he can build things, like weapons and armor for the military.   He wants to build them so he can protect people.  He may go of on a rant about guns or swords or Minecraft, but for all of his obsessions, he is a very tender hearted kid.

So when he asked if I would show him video of the attacks, I wasn't sure I wanted to show him, but I decided if he was going to see those images,  that I'd rather have him watch with me.

I found a video on YouTube and watched the the plane flew into the tower.  I managed to only watch a few seconds before I couldn't watch any more.  Those images affect me as much today as when I saw them 12 years ago.  Xander watched for a few minutes,  then stopped. 

He didn't say anything, we just watched TV for a bit.  Then he asked some more questions.  I found an article that had pictures and told him he could look if he wanted, but he didn't have too.  After a few moments, he took my phone and read the article and looked at the pictures. 

It was really hard for me to let him,  I mean, who really wants their child to see that, but this is the world we live in now.  He's going to see them sometime, he needed to be prepared.  After he finished, he really just wanted to cuddle for a few minutes, I think so he could know that I would always love him, and maybe put some semblance of normalcy back in his life.

We talked about some of my feelings.  I told him about my visit to NYC a couple of years after the attacks, and how I was at Battery Park, just a couple of blocks from Ground Zero, and how I couldn't go see it.  For me it was just too much.  The attacks that day rocked my world, and not in a good way.  I remember watching something on PBS with Xander, who wasn't quite 2,  and feeding Marquella, who was just a couple of months old, when my friend called.

I will never forget what she said,  "They're attacking us."

For days I was glued to the television, just as I'm sure, like most of the rest of the country was.  Finally I couldn't take it any more and just turned the TV off.  Ever since then, I really haven't been able to look at any images from that day. 

I'm a big fan of history,  but this history was just too up close and personal.

We talked about the silence of not hearing any planes overhead.  We lived under the flight path, and the silence was deafening. We also talked about the times when a plane seemed that is was flying to close to the ground and how my heart would stop, and I would watch and wait, hoping and praying that everything would be okay. 

Thankfully, it always was, but I had changed. Part of my innocence was gone, and now, so was Xander's.

We talked about Pearl Harbor, and how for me, while yes, it was horrible,  I wasn't alive for it, so it didn't affect me the same as say my Grandmother,  whose brother died on the Arizona. 

Xander understood why it affected me differently.  He knows it was bad and understands the events a little better, but he didn't watch the towers come down, so while right now he's laying in bed trying to put the images he saw into some kind of context, what he saw isn't quite real for him. 

I wish I could say that I would never have to worry about anything like 9/11 happening again, and that I wouldn't have to worry about how it affects my kids,  but everyday you turn on the news,  somewhere there is something horrible happening, somewhere he'll see the broken body of a child or mother or father,  and I know I can't protect them from everything. 

I'm the meantime, I'm going to try and teach them what 9/11 means for this country and for them and teach them what it means to not only be an American, but also a human being.

I just wish that they could stay innocent for a little while longer.