I remember being in the living room, just finishing seeing my children off to school, when my neighbor came rushing through the door begging for me to turn on my television. She was crying and overwhelmingly concerned. I immediately obeyed and what I saw in that first instance changed my life forever. The picture of the second plane hitting the twin towers just as it was happening. And my heart sank.
Why am I writing about this? Why now after eleven years does it matter to speak out? How could it possibly affect the lives of our family and the children herein? Because it was the day that I lost my innocent belief that our nation was untouchable and that my children were inherently safe in this nation by citizenship alone. Before 9/11, I automatically believed that the land of the United States was untouchable and unreachable for any foreign nation to cause catastrophic events that would leave us awestruck and dumbfounded and unaware. That day as I watched and prayed for the people of these tragedies, a part of my own childlike innocence died. I grew up. There became another facet to my mothering that I had never considered before: Foreign Terrorism. And while I knew that terrorism existed elsewhere in the world, it never even occurred to me that my children could be unsafe merely by being in a public place at the wrong time. My heart sank as I realized that my children could be in danger right in there school. What if some terrorist decided to shoot or bomb every school in the United States. Does that seem unfeasible? I do not know, but I know that to a young mother many miles away from "Ground Zero", that thought more than crossed my mind.
I remember calling Tim that morning and us discussing going and getting our kids out of school. I remember finally deciding to let them stay, but in the pit of my stomach being nervous and scared and sort of out of control. I think that I felt helpless. Helpless to protect my children from a now unsafe nation and helpless not to be a part of the people around our nation who were actually living in that terrible day.
I remember thinking of the children's biological family and if this had affected them as they came from New York city. I remember saying good-bye to my sister that day on the phone, and never really knowing if telling her I loved her would be the last time I said it. I felt afraid. An innocence lost.
But as that day, weeks, months, and now years have unfolded, I now feel empowered as a mother and empowered to be a part of a nation that has pulled itself up by the boot straps and realized that we are infallible and we do need to protect what is ours. As a mother, I train my children to be a little afraid. I train them to be more knowledgeable of their surroundings and what to do in an emergency. But mostly, when I send them out into the world, I hug them a little tighter, give them a bigger smooch, and pray a little longer for their safety so that if a tragic event takes place in our lives, they will always know that they are loved. Sometimes when innocence is lost...knowledge is gained.
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