LadyisRed
Shared on Mon, 09/11/2006 - 18:59I posted this on my other blog, but I will repost here since it has nothing to do with diapers. lol
I have to do this blog, but I don't want to. So many emotions running so deep. I hardly know where to begin.
My son Andrew was born August 24, 2001. Three weeks early. However, For the 8 months before that, the date that was burned into my brain was 9/11, the day he was due. Little did I know at that time that 9/11 would be forever burned into my brain and heart for much different reasons.
Andrew was not a good nurser. He dropped over a pound after he was born. When he was two weeks old we went to a lactation consultant and fixed the problem. So when he woke me up a little before 7am mountain time, on the morning of the 11th, I was happy. I sat down in my favorite black rocking chair and turned on the TV while I nursed him. Back before having children, I watched the today show in the mornings. So the today show was on when I fired the tv up. This happened to be the same time that the first footage of WTC1 was trickling onto the airwaves. That sickening picture of that tower with the bright blue sky behind it, and all of the black smoke gushing out. First I was confused- why is a movie on? Where is my news? OH SHIT! this IS the news. My stomach dropped.
Kyle was still asleep in the other room and I started yelling for him, which also woke up our upstairs neighbors. He came in, and I could see the same process going through his mind. Our neighbor from upstairs came down to see if we were ok. He saw what we were looking at and ran back upstairs to his wife to wake her. I immediately called the other members of my family who are all west coast and who were still in bed. I don't know what made me so compelled to be the bearer of such bad news. Most of my family members were still still blissfully asleep and I urged them to turn on their TVs.
The rest of the day was spent glued to the TV, as the horror of it all just grew and grew. The second plane crash, the people jumping, the firefighters going in but not coming out, the pentagon, flight 93, the fall of the first tower, and then the fall of the second.
By the afternoon I couldn't watch anymore. I was a wreak. the families in our fourplex ended up being in the front lawn and we started talking. One was days away from having her baby, one had a baby 10 months old, and the others were newlywed. What would this mean. Would we lose our husbands to war? Would there be war in America. Were we bringing these children into a war zone. What about our siblings. Would my sisters be drafted.
Never get 4 hormonal women around speculating, all you get is worse case scenarios.
By dinner time I was a mess. All I could do was hug my baby and hug my husband and cry for the little babies that would never know their daddies and the Mommies who had lost their grown babies.
Looking at Andrew I had this mental picture of a strawberry blond young man going off to fight a war, and never seeing him again. (note again, post pregnancy hormones are NOT good to add to a national disaster)
5 years later and its a new world. Not as bad as I thought it would be, but not as good as I wish it would be. We have brave men and women fighting overseas for the freedom of others. I'm not sure I agree with them being there, but they are heroes all the same.
Now I look at Andrew and I see not a young man going off to war, but a boy that wishes to be a hero. Because to him, a hero is the very best thing that anyone could be. This morning as they were playing dress up, he didn't want to be a dinosaur, or a cowboy. He wanted to be a firefighter, because firefighters are heros. I broke into tears as he walked over to help Dylan. the back of his fireman's jacket said NYFD.
He saw a picture of the twin towers burning today and for the first time I had to explain to my children about what happened that day. Amazing what optimists children his age are. We watched one of the tributes to 9/11 and I explained to him the things that happened. He chose to focus on the firefighters that helped people out of the fire, and away from the building that smooshed, and when I showed him the building that smooshed he instantly said "well lets build a new one that is sparkly and new!"
Thank you to the men and women out there that made my child's favorite heroes be soldiers and firefighters. Not power rangers. Thank you for giving my son someone to look up to.
Its so easy to focus on the almost 3000 that died, but I also want to remember the thousands that lived because of heroes. I want to remember how our nation pulled together afterwards and helped resupply new york with the things that it needed both materially and emotionally. I want to remember that in a world of killings, rapes, and robberies, that there are heroes out there, who would risk, and sometimes give their life for a stranger.
[youtube]http://youtube.com/watch?v=R4vBhSw-vrE[/youtube]
My son Andrew was born August 24, 2001. Three weeks early. However, For the 8 months before that, the date that was burned into my brain was 9/11, the day he was due. Little did I know at that time that 9/11 would be forever burned into my brain and heart for much different reasons.
Andrew was not a good nurser. He dropped over a pound after he was born. When he was two weeks old we went to a lactation consultant and fixed the problem. So when he woke me up a little before 7am mountain time, on the morning of the 11th, I was happy. I sat down in my favorite black rocking chair and turned on the TV while I nursed him. Back before having children, I watched the today show in the mornings. So the today show was on when I fired the tv up. This happened to be the same time that the first footage of WTC1 was trickling onto the airwaves. That sickening picture of that tower with the bright blue sky behind it, and all of the black smoke gushing out. First I was confused- why is a movie on? Where is my news? OH SHIT! this IS the news. My stomach dropped.
Kyle was still asleep in the other room and I started yelling for him, which also woke up our upstairs neighbors. He came in, and I could see the same process going through his mind. Our neighbor from upstairs came down to see if we were ok. He saw what we were looking at and ran back upstairs to his wife to wake her. I immediately called the other members of my family who are all west coast and who were still in bed. I don't know what made me so compelled to be the bearer of such bad news. Most of my family members were still still blissfully asleep and I urged them to turn on their TVs.
The rest of the day was spent glued to the TV, as the horror of it all just grew and grew. The second plane crash, the people jumping, the firefighters going in but not coming out, the pentagon, flight 93, the fall of the first tower, and then the fall of the second.
By the afternoon I couldn't watch anymore. I was a wreak. the families in our fourplex ended up being in the front lawn and we started talking. One was days away from having her baby, one had a baby 10 months old, and the others were newlywed. What would this mean. Would we lose our husbands to war? Would there be war in America. Were we bringing these children into a war zone. What about our siblings. Would my sisters be drafted.
Never get 4 hormonal women around speculating, all you get is worse case scenarios.
By dinner time I was a mess. All I could do was hug my baby and hug my husband and cry for the little babies that would never know their daddies and the Mommies who had lost their grown babies.
Looking at Andrew I had this mental picture of a strawberry blond young man going off to fight a war, and never seeing him again. (note again, post pregnancy hormones are NOT good to add to a national disaster)
5 years later and its a new world. Not as bad as I thought it would be, but not as good as I wish it would be. We have brave men and women fighting overseas for the freedom of others. I'm not sure I agree with them being there, but they are heroes all the same.
Now I look at Andrew and I see not a young man going off to war, but a boy that wishes to be a hero. Because to him, a hero is the very best thing that anyone could be. This morning as they were playing dress up, he didn't want to be a dinosaur, or a cowboy. He wanted to be a firefighter, because firefighters are heros. I broke into tears as he walked over to help Dylan. the back of his fireman's jacket said NYFD.
He saw a picture of the twin towers burning today and for the first time I had to explain to my children about what happened that day. Amazing what optimists children his age are. We watched one of the tributes to 9/11 and I explained to him the things that happened. He chose to focus on the firefighters that helped people out of the fire, and away from the building that smooshed, and when I showed him the building that smooshed he instantly said "well lets build a new one that is sparkly and new!"
Thank you to the men and women out there that made my child's favorite heroes be soldiers and firefighters. Not power rangers. Thank you for giving my son someone to look up to.
Its so easy to focus on the almost 3000 that died, but I also want to remember the thousands that lived because of heroes. I want to remember how our nation pulled together afterwards and helped resupply new york with the things that it needed both materially and emotionally. I want to remember that in a world of killings, rapes, and robberies, that there are heroes out there, who would risk, and sometimes give their life for a stranger.
[youtube]http://youtube.com/watch?v=R4vBhSw-vrE[/youtube]
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