On the Eve

I'm not sure that I have ever written much on the 9/11 Anniversaries. I can never seem to find the right words. Even now, I struggle. I write a sentence, then delete the whole thing.

But I want to try. I want to try because of Anna. My daughter Anna will turn ten years old in December. As this anniversary has approached I have found myself thinking about her a great deal. Perhaps it is because my most vivid memories associated with that day was how aware I was of her rolling and kicking in my belly. And the sad feeling that this baby was to be born into a completely different world than the one that existed just one day earlier. She would come into a world at war.

I have little true personal connection with the immense tragedy so many families suffered that day. Peace was my casualty. I remember calling my parents, being on the phone with my father as the reports of the plane hitting the Pentagon started to come through. The Pentagon? Really? How was that possible? Having grown up in Northern Virginia, I was used to the stream of military families constantly moving through the area. I'm certain I had friends growing up whose father's worked at the Pentagon. It was surreal. I remember thinking that my youngest sister had just recently flown out to California and flown out of Dulles. The thought made me ill.

Completely unrelated to 9/11, my parents happen to be in New York City this weekend. Its scary. My brother lives there. Its scary. We go on, we live our lives. We try harder to love. We carry the shared grief for so much life lost, for our peace shattered. We try try harder to live each day intentionally. We go on. That baby I worried about earned a new belt in Tae Kwon Do today. We go on. We remember. We pray.