Day 50 of 366

Day 50: February 19, 2012

We have started cleaning out the basement. We are going to start getting it finished up. We are tearing down walls to make a family room, redoing the bathroom, moving and remodeling my studio, and turning one of the existing bathrooms into a changing room for my studio. It will be awesome when it's done.

While Parker and I were going through some totes of stuff, we came across the magazines I had saved from the week of September 11, 2001. Now, I know he had learned a little about it last year in school with it being the 10 anniversary and then the death of Osama bin Laden. But, I struggled with wither or not he was ready to look at these magazines and some of the images that were in them. He really wanted to see them, so I finally decided that we would look at them together so we could talk about what he saw in them, I could sensor some of the ones I thought were too mature and we could talk about the actual events and answer any questions he had.

I remember standing in the check-out line at Wal-Mart last year when the anniversary edition magazines were out. I watched a man with his 5 or 6 year old daughter flip though these magazines. I was astonished that this man would show his child an image of people jumping to their deaths from the towers. And, now here I was. Granted, Parker is older and images from 9/11 are still all over TV and the Internet, but I wanted to preserve his innocents for as long as I could. So we began our journey.

I had a couple of goals in my head. First, I wanted to approach this is a truthful way. Second, I wanted to make sure none of this scared him. Third, I wanted him to understand what an important day 9/11 became to us. And lastly, I wanted him to understand all about the kindness, generosity, love, support, patriotism, resolve, resilience, and determination people shown during this horrible time.

Before we started, I asked him if he could tell me exactly what he was doing a year ago. He looked at me like I was crazy. :) I told him that I could remember every detail of that day, just as the rest of America could.  So, I shared my story (the short version of course). 

I was a sophomore at Chadron State College. I woke up to a MSN message (yes that was when MSN was cool) that said for me to turn on my TV. I asked what channel, and she responded "ANY". I turned on my TV right as the 2nd plane flew into the 2nd tower. I was with my good friend Matt at the time. I remember being confused. I remember being scared. I remember not knowing what to do.  I remember feeling completely helpless.  I remember we both called our parents. And, for what seems like days we sat in front of the TV watching CNN. We watched in awe as the Pentagon was hit, the Towers collapsed, and the speculation swirled around whether or not the White House was a target, and later the fate of Flight 93. 

As we looked through these magazines, he saw images of the attack, the aftermath, and the chaos.  But, I also showed him the images of the thousands of people standing on the streets holding flags and signs that said Thank You.  We looked at images of candlelight visuals.  We looked at images of the heroes.

I don’t know if what I did was right.  I don’t know if he was old enough to see some of these images.  But, I do know my son.  His curiosity is never ending.  I just hope that I was able to guide him down the path of these events with a gentle touch.  Someday I am sure he will want to read the stories himself.  We’ll cross that path when we get there.  As I know, I will have to do three more times with my other children and they will with their children.  After all, 9/11 has become a defining moment in our history.  Where were you?