September 10...

Today was a good day here...Erin went to KDO and cried when I left her but seemed to adjust well and was happy when I got back. I had lunch with Zachary at his school...we went through the lunch line and ate together. I am always amazed that he is mine and how special he is. I look forward to having lunch with him at least one day a week while Erin is in school. It is a great chance to see him in his element and connect with him. We had a ton of rain here today, which this area desperately needed. The kids loved it! I skipped Zach's speech because of flash flood warnings where he has it...I am glad I did. We had a nice dinner and then a family walk around the neighborhood since the rain had stopped. It was nice!

We got home and did the usual bed time routine...I walked Zach up to bed and then started to lay out Zach's clothes for the next day. They are supposed to wear red shirts tomorrow in honor of September 11th. He asked me, "why do I need to wear red on that date?" Ugh...I hate those questions. Like the night we looked at photos of my mom's mom we had taken in SF a few years ago...he asked where her dad was and I told him he passed away in 1995 and was no longer with us....He asked where he was and I told him in heaven...then he asked where is Heaven on my map mommy...eventually he determined it was in Connecticut, New Haven to be exact. I felt no need to argue that one.

I tried to explain tonight to him that on this date 8 years ago bad people called terrorists flew planes into buildings in NY City and hurt a lot of people. It was a bad day for our country...how it caused us to go to other countries and try to keep people safe...tying daddy being gone last year and other friends parents being gone....trying to make it honest and real without being too scary. He is only 5 after all. I don't want him scared of planes or NY. I don't want him to live in fear. But I also want him to know as much of the truth as I can share with him. I wish I had been better prepared for that, but how can most of us explain to our children something we don't even understand. We all know where we were, how we found out. We remember how we felt and the events that followed. But none of us really even now can really grasp so much of it...that on September 10th we all felt so much safer...how much changed from that day on and how much will never be the same.

I can only hope and pray that I don't have to explain to him events like again and that he won't have a day like that in his memory one day...don't we all want a safer world? If only it were that simple. But we can take the time to remember the people that died that day and the heroes that worked so selflessly to save lives while risking their own...we can remember how we all felt united as a country and unified under one cause. So sad that it takes such a massive tragedy for our nation to become united like that and in 8 years how much we have forgotten.

God Bless the thousands of victims of 9/11, the rescue workers, families and friends of the victims and all Americans who now live with the outcome of that day...