A Day I'll Never Forget

I wonder if there will ever be a year that I will be able to do a post on this date without referring to that day.

That day eleven years ago.

That day when I looked out of my 10th floor apartment window downtown and - looking down on the world below - and saw the masses fleeing my beloved city.  My beloved home.

I never felt so scared prior to that point.

I never felt so alone in a city of thousands.

I was angry.  How dare they do this?  How dare they rock my world?

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Today, the world is different.

Very different.

I have siblings who have lived in a world in which this is the norm.  They never know a time in which you could meet a family member at the gate at the airport.  Or that you didn't have to put liquids in clear, quart-sized bags.  Or that you had to remove your shoes in security lines.

What about my boy?  Will he understand this?

Will he understand just what we lost that day?

I cannot answer that.

Maybe he will.

Maybe he won't.

Maybe he'll understand it as a historical event - not unlike Pearl Harbor or the assassination of JFK to my generation.

Maybe he'll understand it in a concrete way - killing is wrong.  What the terrorists did was wrong.

The world I bring my child up in is very different than the one of my childhood.

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Every year, this date will always bring pause.

We'll never forget.

I'll never forget.

I'll do everything in my power to make sure that the memory of what we lost as a nation on that September morning - both the loss of life and innocence of a generation - is not lost on my boy.

He will know.  Some way, some how, some day - he will.