Nine Eleven

It’s one of those days where you remember exactly what you were doing when you heard about it. And I feel like I have to get it out of my head. So here it is.

I have always worried that Son#2 was being lost in the shuffle. Son#3 was not planned and all my kids are so close in age. When Son#3 turned two, I put him in a little Methodist preschool down the street, just two days a week from 9 to 12. I decided that one Tuesday a Month would be “Mommy and Son#2 Day”. Sept 11th was our first.

We dropped off Son#3 at 9:00. We got back in the car and I told him we could eat anywhere he wanted to for breakfast. Any great meal, it was just he and I and we could do pancakes or eggs or anything. He picked Burger King. Bleh. We’re driving down the road and I have my Alternative Music radio station on. They’re known for their jokes. As I’m listening, nothing they are saying is making sense. I remember thinking, “WTF are they doing? How annoying.” and I turned the station. Everything they were saying was confusing and emotional and it just was this gobblety gook of nonsense. So I turned it to National Pinko Radio (NPR) and I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. It was much more coherent. I didn’t know what to think, so now I was alternating between NPR and my radio station… my radio station for some reason had a more calming effect on me.

We get to BK (I was unable to talk him out of it) and they have TVs. I ordered his breakfast and we sat down. I was watching, all of us were watching in stunned silence. None of us knew what to make of it. We were horrified and scared and speechless.

Finally my 4 year old looked at me, I was too stunned to realize he was WATCHING ALL OF THIS WITH ME, and said, “Mommy, did bad guys do this?” I replied, “Yes, little buddy they did.” And then looking at me with his big blue eyes, trying to make sense of it all, seeing the emotions crossing my face, he squeezed my arm and said trying to comfort me, “Mommy, maybe it wasn’t really bad guys. Maybe it was Aliens from Outer Space.” I quietly hugged him and said, “Oh little buddy, I wish it was so. I really wish it was so.”

The rest of the morning was spent with me watching TV and calling the school, wondering if we should pick up my eldest who was in 1st grade. The teachers in their horror had turned on the TVs and all of our young children watched it. Nobody was thinking that day. Finally at Noon they closed the school and my husband picked him up while I picked up Son#3.

I watched the TV for three days, non stop. Then the dreams started. I started to wake up to the enormity of what I was doing to myself and to my children. I was exposing them to too much and I was beginning to unravel and was starting to show coping problems and my anxiety levels were such that they were probably dangerous. I became a freak with internet research on preparation for the worst from nuclear war to chemical warfare. I think I started to become half insane.

A bridesmaid of mine was in Tower 1. She got out. That’s a story in itself. In West Palm, everyone has big links to NYC. Everyone. The stories started pouring in. Although I was fortunate to not lose anyone I knew personally, nearly every person I know down here lost someone close to them. I know all the stories. I have committed them to memory. Even now when I talk to someone who had ties to NYC, it is part of what defines them to me, in my mind. At the first hello, I instantly remember their story and who they lost. And when I heard the stories of the firefighters running up the stairs to their deaths, it was more than I could handle, and I started to vomit.

After a week, I turned off the TV. I haven’t watched the news since. I did too much damage. I was a news junkie until 9/11. As of a week after, I am careful now.

I weep for the families and their losses. There is no more that I can do.