Telling the kids

NY Times front page (09/12/01)

 

 

 

A friend recently posted on her Facebook page a question regarding how to introduce the topic of 9/11 with younger children.

On September 11, 2001, my kids were ages 10, 8 and 5. We didn't have lots of time to figure out what to say and how to say it. We had to wing it.

My older daughter was in 5th grade. They were told in school some generalities of what had happened - the oldest and only grade of students in that school to be told.

My younger daughter (grade 3) and my son (starting kindergarden), had started at an out-of-town magnet school just a few weeks earlier. They were not told anything about what had happened, but knew something was amiss: the school - big on technology - had banned kids from being exposed to TV or radio that day. And recess was REALLY long.

My husband picked the kids up from after school care at the regular time (about 5:30 PM). It never crossed our minds to pick them up early that day, and I still don't understand why one would do so. On the short ride home, he told all the kids a bit more about what had happened. Planes in NYC - where we'd been the previous Christmas season to see the Radio City show. The Pentagon. The field in Shanksville, PA. No, it wasn't near your grandparents house in Pittsburgh. Yes, you can call them when we get home.

I arrived home around 7:30 PM - an early day compared to some Red Crossers, mainly due to the pneumonia. My husband and I decided to let the kids watch the towers fall while I sat by to answer questions.

Big mistake.

The girls were stunned into silence. My son stood on a chair and yelled "My Daddy's gonna get those bad men." Though I was more worried about the girls' reaction, over the coming days and weeks, they processed what they saw better than their brother. He became more and more insecure. He never before used a blanket or pacifier for comfort. After 9/11, he started collecting Beanie Babies he called "The Goochie Family." And Beanie kitties. The Goochie Family and the kitties lived in a box that was their home, with a mom and dad.

His obsession with the Goochie Family started to fade around springtime, only to be resurrected when the media started stirring the pot about 6 weeks before the first anniversary. The Goochies were back, but only for about a couple months.

A week after the 9/11 attacks, I listened to WCBS-AM Radio out of NYC. The week seemed to have gone by so quickly.  Driving home, I considered the human perception of the passage of time, and wondered if the next month and year and decade would seem to pass as quickly.

Seemingly, the decade passed quickly. In reality, ten years passed in the same amount of time as 10 years has always passes: 5,250,000 minutes (math made easy by Jonathan Larson).

I still haven't cried. Is that bad? 

Chilling

Sometimes it's the small decisions that determine our fate. These 9/11 survivors are a testament to that.

My own decision to go to work that day was no where near as dramatic, but strange nonetheless. As Communications Manager for the local Red Cross blood bank, I had been on medical leave for pneumonia since just before the previous Labor Day weekend, and not expected back until Monday, September 17, 2001.

Feeling better and noting the beauty of the day, I went into work to check emails and voicemails - both of which I could do from home but I wanted to show my face. I figured I'd do half a day and be ready for a long nap that afternoon.

I distinctly remember looking up at the sky around the time I arrived (a little before 9 AM) and thinking to myself, "What am I doing here? It's gorgeous and warm. I should be out on the back porch in the chaise lounge baking this illness out of me." I was still unaware of what had happened, as were my co-workers.

The first sign of something amiss was when a co-worker's training when the local Red Cross chapter took the room over for the TV so they could watch the news about a plane hitting the WTC. I was reminded of reading about a small plane hitting the Empire State Building many decades earlier and thought this was similar. We put out a small $25 TV to watch the coverage and joined it just in time to see United Flight 175 hit the second tower.

Everything else that day is pretty much a blur. The phones went dead until about 11 AM, then started ringing off the hook for hours. I did numerous TV, radio and newspaper interviews. I called my mom to check on my brother who worked in NYC. He was fine, thankfully.

I still wonder what made me go to work that particular day. I know I worked 19 days straight after that. More on that as the week progresses.

Malloy's two most common utterances

Malloy address the powerless (and those without electricity)
in Ledyard, CT yesterday.
Credit: Bill Thorndike/Stonington Mystic Patch

According to the lead in this morning's Hartford Courant, "power" and "frustration" were the two most common words in used by CT Governor Dannel Malloy at a presser last night about Tropical Storm Irene.

To be technically correct, the two most common utterances from his mouth were "um" and "ah." The guy is not a gifted extemporaneous speaker. How did he become governor again?

Oh yeah, lesser of two evils.

If this photo doesn't make me lose weight...

...nothing will.

Seriously????

Got pot? 

Starbucks is my office

Indeed, it is Starbucks where I do my best work. Without the distractions of home and without the resources of a real office, I am fueled by their coffee and free Internet.

The goal this week is to apply for fifty jobs (ten per day and I'm already two days behind), write and produce a radio show, revise a proposal package to sell the radio show, look into promotional venues for my business and take a HIT exam for which I haven't studied.

Nothing much. Hand me another iced coffee, would you please?

Raining, pouring, Hurricane Irene boring...

Lots of leaf litter, lots of wind and rain, but no power loss and no flooding. I slept through it - all of it. All day. All night. Guilt is setting in...