I Remember

The kids had just gotten to school- kindergarten, and I was at home, alone,  when Matt called to tell me to turn on the TV, someone had flown a second plane into a second building in New York.... and that there was no way this was a coincidence (we, like everyone else, assumed the first plane was an accident). I spent the rest of the day, glued, watching in horror with the rest of the country, unable to believe what I was seeing and hearing.

At one point, I did call the school to see if they needed any assistance... I figured they might be closing and sending kids home, but they stayed open.

Matt works about 4 miles away, at Fermi National Laboratory — high energy physics. They do pure science and have no classified secrets or weapons, but still it was not an unreasonable target in a world where reason seemed to have disappeared.

When the kids finally got home, they walked in and right away I called them for a "double cuddle" (two perfect children in my lap at one time—nothing better in the world)... and then I just broke down, sobbing. Sobbing for them, for the world they would be living in. For the loss. For the unknown.

I don't know how much they understood. Some bad men stole some planes and blew up buildings because they don't like how Americans live and how we believe. Of course it's far more complex than that, but how does one explain to a 5 year old?

It will be interesting to see what they say today, as we watch a bit of the  coverage and...

   ...remember.

(And yes, they really did hold hands on the way to school. It looks adorable, but the truth is that they were making sure neither of them got there "first")