9/11

I had another post all ready to go today, but I've preempted it. I had almost forgotten what day it was. Since Abbey had school I didn't even get into work until 9:30, and it was already past 10 when I realized. 7 years. Crazy. Those in our parents generation will never forget where they were the day Kennedy was shot, and for us we'll never forget where we were on 9/11. I was at work (the same place as today, again, not big on change). I was very newly pregnant with Jack, about 5 weeks, and so nauseated that it was all I could do to stop myself from puking into my wastebasket. I was eating saltines, constantly. I was watching the computer, listening to the news, everyone in my office congregating together, unable to do anything else, and the whole time I just kept shoving saltines into my mouth like some sort of crazed cartoon character. Everyone seemed to either know someone there, or know someone who knew someone, but I didn't. I had no relatives in New York, Washington or on the planes. No long lost friends from college or elementary school. Everyone I knew was safe and sound, but there was a new giant terrifying question of "how long?" How long would everyone I know be safe? And being pregnant, all I could think about was what kind of a world I was bringing a baby into. I had these dramatic visions of delivering in the middle of a war-torn suburb. Of Dennis marching off to fight, me alone wearing some sort of drab colored cape and babushka, clutching a newborn baby. Of course, these things did not happen. Things stayed fundamentally as they were, but they also changed in all ways that were important. The world changed, the safety we had felt was gone and it never returned. My children, and many of your children, were not even ALIVE before 9/11. They never knew a time when the Towers stood, will never know a world that doesn't include the word "terrorism" in its vocabulary. They are the post 9/11 generation, and I have no idea what that means for them.

There were a lot of pregnant woman that day, I was just one of thousands. I saw a special not long after I had Jack, all of those babies that were born after their fathers were killed. 9/11 babies they were called. And now they are 7. They are in the first grade. 7 years.