September 11

Over dinner, we took turns telling about our day. Nora went to the zoo with a friend, Fiona talked about her school day, Ian did some household chores, and I made a lot of angel food cake and tiramisu to take to a dinner tomorrow. Suddenly Fiona remembered something.

"Oh! Do you know what else happened today?!" She was suddenly bursting with information. I told her I surely didn't know, and she would have continued to say, "Yes you do!" had Ian not stopped the loop. "Two planes crashed. Actually, CJ said it was three!" Once we got past the detail that today and eight years ago today are different concepts, we were able to go on.

Ian and I told both girls what life was like for the two of us on that fateful day. There was no Fiona, no Nora. We lived in a different house in a different town. Gracie Dog was still alive and could even sort of hear and see back then. Most people didn't get late-breaking information from the net, and Ian explained that the first people to hear about it were colleagues who were watching TV news.

I have been thinking about September 11th and all the horror that surrounded it all day today. I've been thinking about how hard it is to send a child out of the home for weeks now. I've been thinking about what home, safety, and truth mean.

Fiona said her teacher read a book called September 12 We Knew Everything Would Be All Right, which was written and illustrated by first grade students in Missouri. "It was sad Mom, but not totally sad. I liked it." A little dose of hope can take us a long way.