This morning my daughter, Cupcake, and I caught some coverage of the commemoration of September 11, 2001. We saw flags being raised, names being read, bagpipes being blown, hymns being played, and many tears being shed. She asked lots of questions and I explained how so many people were killed, why so few were rescued from the collapsed buildings, how hijackers took over four planes, how some passengers managed to resist their captors, and how painstakingly the survivors attempted to recover and honor the remains of so many murder victims.
I was unable to describe sufficiently the intensity of grief and despair experienced by those who lost loved ones in September 2001 (my family lost no one), as well as those who saw the nation we loved under brutal attack. Ten years later I still sense it, I still feel it, I carry it with me every day.
I cannot convey to my kids the depth of sadness I feel for the friends and families of those who were lost, as well as our entire country. They have to take me at my word, that September 11, 2001 was one of the worst days of my life and in the history of the United States.
I pray they'll never have any reason to understand it for themselves.
