It's hard to believe that 11 years ago, a National devastation occurred. The
timeline seems so unreal now.
I can't help thinking back to what I was doing when this all went down. I'm sure most people do this on this day. I was 20, sleeping in. I was on maternity leave from A1 (yes, I took maternity leave, I did just pump out a kid, even thought she went home with Family1). My roommate was schedule to work the early shift and wouldn't be home until after 3:30pm. Yea for me, nice sleep in time. Yet, for some reason, at about 8:55am I was awoken by my roommate SCREAMING at me, "turn your tv on! Oh mu God! Turn it on, get that damn thing ON!" By this time, she had run into my room and frantically found the tv power button. I had found the remote. She told me to turn it to CNN. I thought she was crazy. The girl never watched the news. I was so out of it, I just did it...just in time for the second airplane to crash into the second tower in the background of the report. I yelled at my roommate, "why did you wake me up to see this STUPID movie and why are you home?" She looked at me with a blank stare and started to cry. "It's not a movie, you jack@**" she sobbed, "this is
HAPPENING IN NEW YORK!" I looked at her in shock. My first thought was: "is A1 still in this state? Did they go on vacation? Lord, please let her still be here." I remember exactly what happened in those 15 minutes, but cannot tell you what happened the remainder of the day. A lot of
vodka was consumed at our apartment that morning...and afternoon...and evening...and night. All of our friends somehow ended up at our place, and they all brought some.
While I am thinking about what I was doing 11 years ago, I think that there is a whole new generation who DOESN'T know the feelings we "older" folks have about this day. This new generation is separated from us because they never knew what it was like to not live with all the regulations and restrictions that apply now. They are decently carefree, in the fact that they know the rules apply, they know why they exist, but they don't FEEL they way we all do. They hear the aftermath, but don't really know what it means. A whole mess-load of people died and ARE DYING because of this horrific event. A whole memorable skyline was disrupted by this horrifying event.
I know
feelings cannot be felt by others, but I wish they could be. There will always be a separation between me and my daughters. They will never (hopefully) know why is it SO important to be patriotic. During the Summer Olympics, the Beanie Babies and I were watching men's volleyball and The Big One said, "I'm cheering for the green team" and I asked her why. She gave her usual response: "because they are winning." Generally, we say ok and a good percentage of time that team goes on to win. This time, I could not let her cheer on another country. I mean, if she was going to, maybe I would let her cheer for South Korea, after all, she is half that. I just couldn't let her cheer for whatever other team that was. I told her, "The Big One, you know I usually do not care who you cheer for, but it is
very important to Mommy that you cheer for the Blue team this time." She was confused, but said a reluctant, "ok, Mama. I will." She paused, then nicely asked why. I explained that the USA was
OUR country. It is who we need to cheer for because this was the Olympics. We wanted our county to be successful. She agreed and went on with her life.
This morning, I awoke this morning to an email from my Mother. It was about a college scholarship fund that had been set up for the kindness and generosity of a community that came together to help our US Citizens (they called a portion of them Nazim) in another country, while they were stranded for several days. Read the email
here, it is amazing what can be accomplished when we really want to do something. It's amazing how this generation all
feels something together.
