Remembering...

Somehow I feel like I have to post a 9/11 blog today, even though I am only an occasional blogger. This has been a strange day in several ways. I'm never sure what is the best way to honor the innocent people who lost their lives to terrorists, and a big part of me thinks the best way is to go about our lives just like normal. Terrorism is all about fear. As awful as the loss of nearly 3000 lives at once was 10 years ago, that is a drop in the bucket in terms of the US population. Terrorism is not about defeating us, it is about causing fear. In a lot of ways, today was a completely unremarkable day. We slept in a little bit, went for a bike ride to visit Art on the Avenue (or whatever it is called), had leftovers for lunch, enjoyed dinner at an outdoor table at Guapo's, and canned 12 pints of ridiculously tasty apple pie filling that we can pull out throughout the winter whenever we want a typically American treat. 

I think back 10 years to the day the terrorists struck. I was a new teacher at Episcopal. Some of the details are cloudy, but I remember my students coming into class talking about a plane hitting the World Trade Center. We turned on the TV in the classroom to see what was going on, and ended up watching the second tower struck live on TV. We were all stunned, but still naively in denial. At the end of that class I had a free period, and by then the reality was setting in. The Pentagon had been hit, and in some parts of the campus you could see the smoke rising. Because I was free that period, I was assigned a student whose father could have been affected. I am still impressed with how quickly Episcopal identified the students who might have parents in jeopardy. My student's father worked for one of the three big networks' news agencies in the Pentagon, so he was understandably not answering his phone. Normally he worked in the part of the building that was directly his by the plane, but fortunately, with the renovations they were doing, he was not there at the time. We were finally able to get in touch with him and assure the student that his father was okay. I think that was more of a relief to me than to him, because he still had enough 14-year-old "my dad is invincible" attitude to reach a healthy level of denial. Over the next few years before this student graduated from Episcopal, we developed a very good, although maybe quirky, relationship. We are currently Facebook friends and I love watching what he is doing now that he is fully an adult by any measure. He is already a far better man than I will ever be, and although he probably does not even remember that day the way I do, it will always mean a lot to me that we have that extra connection from 9/11/01.

What did I do today to commemorate 9/11/01? Pretty much nothing, and I can't think of a better tribute to the people who put their lives on the line every day to make sure that I can do just that! I owe a huge thank you to the police officers, fire fighters, and members of the armed forces who have devoted all or even a part of their lives to protect my freedom and safety, not just because they did so on 9/11/01, but because they do so every day of every year. For them, there was nothing special about that day - they just happened to be on duty. That is what makes ALL of them so courageous and heroic.