Seven Years Later

It took me, as I drove through my kids’ carpool line this morning, about 15 seconds to figure out why the American flag was at half-mast. Just seven years after 9/11, and all it takes is my usual morning of kid craziness to make me forget. My kids noticed the flag, too, and when I told them today is 9/11, the older two nodded with faint recognition. I gave them a weak account of the significance of today, thinking I would at least prepare them for their teachers’ mention of it, but that mention never occurred.

Later, when I picked them up and took Braden in for a haircut, I listened to a couple of employees talk about their first 9/11, or at least their first memorable one. The man buzzing the clippers around my son’s ear watched the events unfold that day on a TV in his high school. They all did. And the nine-year-old getting his hair cut? He was also glued to the TV that day seven years ago, except unlike everyone else on the planet, he was watching Blue’s Clues. He got to watch a lot of TV that day. Preschool shows played one after the other on our main TV while I sat alone in my bed, watching the horror play out on my little TV. I was nine months pregnant, and as my little Addison squirmed inside of me, for the first time I regretted my decision to bring another child into this world. I remember thinking of end-times biblical passages that describe how things will be extra hard for pregnant women. “That’s me,” I thought. “The world is ending and I can’t even get my shoes on.”

We’d been in our new home just about a week, and we had nothing in the house to eat. I finally pulled myself together enough to drive with Braden to the grocery store, and I remember the eerie silence there. No one said a word; we just kept our eyes glued to the several TVs that appeared out of nowhere to ensure the grocery-store patrons didn’t miss a single grim detail.

I remember the first anniversary. One of the TV news shows gathered all the 9/11 babies—those who lost their daddies (mostly) on that day—and told stories of now-single mothers delivering and raising their babies alone. Lisa Beamer was one of those; I read her book and tangibly felt her pain. I prayed regularly for her and her three fatherless kids. Now, seven years later, I had to google “Let’s Roll” to even remember her last name.

Time does heal. That’s not necessarily always a good thing. Sometimes it heals too well.