9/11 (a day late and a dollar short)
I should've posted this yesterday, but as usual, I'm a day late and a dollar short.
September 11, 2001:
It was a beautiful day that started out like any other. At the time, Minnie was 2 1/2 and Mickey had just turned 1, and Beavis was 10 and at school. My big plan for the day was to take the little ones shoe shopping. We were home (a different house than we're in now, and Hub and I had just started living together and weren't married yet), the kids were in the living room watching PBS and I was busy in the kitchen with the radio on. I remember I was standing near the refrigerator when Ralphie Marino, the morning guy, came on to announce that two planes had hit the WTC. I knew it then, it was big, huge, and without a doubt related to the same people who'd bombed it in 1993.
Fully knowing that it would piss the kiddies off, yet really not caring, I put the tv onto ABC and became glued to Peter Jennings and the footage. I sat right on the coffee table in front of the tv and watched in shock. The more I watched, the more the kids got restless, they wanted to watch Sagwa and Teletubbies and Dragon Tales and ANYTHING but this. How does one explain this to toddlers?
When the first tower came down, I started bawling. All those people in that building, all the people at the bottom of the building, the police, the firefighters, everyone, all I could think of was them and their families. I calmed down a bit and then the second tower fell. Lost it again. And all the while, the kids were pestering me to put PBS back on. When I couldn't take anymore, I obliged them. PBS kept showing kids' shows and I, for one, was so grateful.
I finally decided to leave the house around 11:30 or so. I stopped in to see Hub at work. He was working ground maintenance at a local healthcare facility and was outside, with the radio on, listening to everything unfold. In the short time I was there, three strangers walked by, listened, and asked for the latest.
I left with the kids and headed to the shoe store, the idea of dismissing Beavis from school danced around in my head, I just wanted to be with all of my kids so bad, but I decided against it.
In the shoe store, the radio was on, and a sales lady walked by and looked at me and commented that people were dismissing their kids from school all over the city. That's one thing that sticks out in my head, how total strangers were just stopping, and talking about it, just initiating conversations out of the blue. How everything had changed so much in such a short period of time.
I picked Beavis up afterschool. He normally walked home, but that day I picked him up without warning. He wanted to know why I picked him up. Don't you know what happened today? I asked him, assuming that the school would tell the kids. And I was relieved to find out they hadn't, and they sent a letter home telling us they hadn't, and why. So I told him, and he was shocked and couldn't wait to watch the news.
If there is one thing I'll give George W credit for, it's the way he handled that day and the days that followed. Of course, once we went into Afganistan, I had a big problem with that, but for those few days, he had my respect.
HAd to know, within a short time, that we'd all go back to business as usual and so many forgot that "what's really important" lesson that day.
I remember the sting of finally realizing how much hatred there was for the USA. To know that there were people in the world that hated us THAT MUCH for what our government does, or because we are not Muslim, or whatever.
I discovered Buddhism within two months of that day, and I don't think I would have otherwise.
Listening to: Currently reading: Thinking about: