9-11 Observance

September 11, 2006 – 8:23 am |

I was home on maternity leave with the first of my children – he was barely two weeks old. I was lotioning him up, dressing him in some fuzzy blue outfit, and preparing for another day of settling in with a new baby, which I expected to include a few more reruns of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, taking a couple naps, changing a few diapers… when my husband called to tell me to turn on the TV. I tuned in just before the second plane hit the tower.

I spent most of my maternity leave watching, crying and processing, like the rest of America. Having a newborn to help soak up my own sadness also gave my an understanding of the pain in a way I wouldn’t have understood it a month earlier. I could barely contemplate, and still can’t, the devastation for the children and mothers left without fathers to help them through life’s joys and pains.

Reflections on September11 will be everywhere today, lots of people will take on all kinds of difficult subjects and many will wrap them up and spin them out to tell one story or another. I like this – it’s simply a portrait of the victims. http://www.nytimes.com/pages/national/portraits/

Today, as I watch that same newborn who grieved with me at two weeks old go to his first day of school, I will think of the families of the victims and try to share a little of the grief I know they still endure.