When TK was in second grade, my husband took her into NYC for a day of fun and adventure. A few months later, she started third grade and life as we knew it changed forever.
She doesn’t remember the trip, nor does she remember how our day played out on 9/11. At that time my husband and I had not yet even begun the talks about creating her younger siblings and her older half siblings lived far away and only came to visit NYC after 9/11.
This morning I made our children who live at home watch some of the 9/11 anniversary specials on t.v. They fussed, bored and antsy to get back to their cartoons and computers. They could not feel my sickened stomach as my memories flooded back. They could not feel my sadness as the victims’ family members shared their stories. For them, 9/11 is a page of a history book, as Pearl Harbor once was in my mind.
For me 9/11 made all historical accounts of war and tragedy real, tangible, things I can now truly envision and feel when I read about them or visit sites like Babi Yar. But for my children, before and after 9/11 is all the same to them, and a part of me hopes nothing ever changes that.
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