9/11/01

On the morning of Sept.11th me and my family were sleeping. Monte was working 3-11 at the time so we had gotten in the habit of going to bed late and sleeping in every morning. My mother-in-law called at 10 something and wanted to know if we had heard. She also had not had a TV or radio on and didn't know. My father-in-law had called her from work when he heard. She woke me up and it took a few minutes to comprehend what she had just told me. 2 planes into the World Trade Center, 1 into the Pentagon, and 1 more that was missing.

We hung up the phone so we could go camp out in front of the TV like the rest of America. Me and Monte sat for hours not saying much just trying to make some sense of what they kept replaying over and over. Lil Monte was 3 1/2 at the time and I just remember thinking how would I ever explain this to him. So we tried to keep him in the other room with his Veggie Tales videos going.

For days it was all anyone could talk about. It was the only thing on TV. But it's not like you wanted to watch anything else. I remember my sister calling and she said she flipped thru the channels just to see if anyone had anything on, and even the food network had news coverage on. Once everything did go back to normal it was such a feeling of guilt that we could watch something funny on TV, we could go to the mall and out to lunch with a friend. I felt guilty laughing.

This morning 9-11 is all anyone is talking about. On the radio when we took Lil Monte to school. On the TV when we got home and I was nursing Carter. So of course Hunter saw and heard this. He wanted to know what was going on. Was this something real or a movie? How do you explain to a 5 year old? Hunter was 9 months old at the time. Just a baby. Someone to hold and snuggle with in a time of sadness. A baby that still smiled and laughed because he didn't know.

Today we hug tighter the ones that we love. Are a bit kinder to those we don't know. We will never forget. Could never forget.