Today is a day that few of us will forget. I wanted to share my story of that day.
I was pregnant with my son. That morning as is my ritual I went online to read the news. I went down the line of sites in my bookmarks and couldn’t get to any news website anywhere. They were all stuffed to the gills with traffic.
I knew immediately something was wrong – there is never that much traffic on every site consistently. So we went to the TV to see if we could find any information. That was just as plane number two hit the towers. I dropped to the floor in a sob, Neil joined me and we watched, from the floor, mouths agape while reporters tried to make sense of things. There was no sense to find. I knew that my father was in NY on business that week, and I immediately thought of him, and my cousins in NY, I had no idea where they worked and hoped that they were safe. Half of my family at one time or another had called NY home. And thoughts of each and every one of them passed through my head.
I sat there and cried – not knowing what happened, but having a hunch, and feeling cold and sorrowful as I began aching for all of those families and people in the planes and in the towers.
I wondered at that moment what in the world I was doing bringing a new perfect life into this very very very imperfect world. It truly was a turning point for me, that this child would be forced to live in a world that I didn’t feel safe in.
I remain dubious whether it was fair of me to have a child in these times. Such a wonderful, bright kid, with so much promise. Its such a scary world and I won’t always be there to protect him.
But I have hopes that maybe some day he and the other kids like him will do something to make it a better place. One where there is less hate, and less intolerance, and less fighting. One where there is less fear, across the board.
One where we understand that there is a higher value to some things, things that can’t be measured in dollars and cents, or Euros or Yen. One where we realize that the important things in life are right in front of you, above you, in you and under your feet.
One where the world, or at least this country refocuses on things that are important and vital to our survival. My list of what is vital is probably very different from yours, but for me those vital things are the things that I cling to on dark days. Today in memory is one of those dark days, but there is light too. And part of that light is knowing that my son is growing up with the same values that my husband and I feel strongly about, and for that I am proud.