Reflecting

As we all know, this weekend is a pretty important weekend. It seems impossible that ten years could have passed already, but tomorrow marks the ten year anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. I briefly talked about it with my classes yesterday and had them do a quickwrite on thier memories of that day. I'm not sure if I should be sad or glad that most of my students' memories are fuzzy. Most of them were in second grade, and while many of my students are military kids, most of them seemed as if they were pretty removed from the horrific events that took place that day.

That night I remember finding comfort with friends. We all went to Cyndi's house after a day of pretending everything was ok so our students wouldn't become scared or upset. I snuck glances at the television in my classroom between classes and every 55 minutes the news became more and more grim. At Cyndi's, I remember watching the news and seeing the same terrifying images over and over again. They were burned into our minds. No matter how badly we wanted to look away we couldn't. We were witnessing the terrible reality of history.

I listened to NPR's StoryCorps on the way to work this week. One father, a retired fireman, spoke of losing his two sons who were both firemen on that day. He reflected on his last converstations with each of them. They both ended with "I love you." He has found comfort in those last three words to each of his heroic sons over the last ten years. I can't even begin to imagine how difficult the path to tomorrow's anniversary has been--for everyone who lost loved ones.

So, my friends, I hope that ten years later you find happiness and comfort on 9/11. I hope you find safety and security. I hope you find healing and recovery. I hope you find yourself with those you love. Hold them a little tighter tomorrow and let them know how much you love them.

To borrow a question from a song, "Where were you when the world stopped spinning that September day?"

(Image from here)