I decided to tell Jake about today. I know you're probably wondering, "Why would you tell your FOUR-year-old about what happened?!" I think I got caught up in a teaching moment, plus we were going over today's date, and he had just watched me scroll through my Facebook feed and saw all the picture posts and a short video about the building of the memorial tower that's been happening over the past few years.
So we're sitting at the kitchen table where we do homeschooling and I told him that today is Friday, September 11. I told him that it's also known as Patriot Day or Remembrance Day. Then I went on to tell him the history.
Me: A long time ago--fourteen years--something really bad happened.
Jake: What happened?
Me: Some really bad men took over some planes and hurt (*hesitation*) and killed a lot of people. Do you remember seeing the pictures on the computer that mommy was looking at? And the video of the construction job with the cranes building something.
Jake: Yeah.
Me: Well, the pictures had two towers, known as the Twin Towers, because they looked the same. The bad men steered the planes into those towers. And those towers fell. And because of it a lot of people lost ones they loved--mommies and daddies and friends and relatives.
The entire time Jake's face was very somber, and I could tell he was trying to make it make sense to him. He looked almost about to cry when he asked me the question.
"But why did they do that, mommy? Why?"
All I could come up with to make it simplistic enough for him was, "Because they were very bad men."
I didn't go into any more detail than that, and yes, I left out the Pentagon and the Pennsylvania flight because after that question and seeing his expression I was afraid either I'd lose it or I scare him too much. Again, I don't know what possessed me to tell my young son those things. A part of me was thinking to show him good and evil, and cause and effect. A part of me was just trying to throw some history into our homeschooling.
Each year I see people remembering that day, whether on my Facebook feed or on the news. I remember that day. I was in French class in high school. Mrs. Blankenbaker had given us some work and then left the room. She came back in with a TV, and we all got excited as students do, thinking we were going to get to watch a movie or something and wouldn't have to do much work. The teacher said nothing to us as she closed the door and went about setting up the TV. She turned it on, but didn't put in a movie. Instead, she switched it to the news. An image of the Twin Towers, one smoking, came on the screen. I think she may have explained what was going on, but I don't really remember as I listened to the news anchor describing the scene. We all forgot about our work and moved closer, I sat on the floor with some of my friends. Then the second plane hit the second tower. There was a collective gasp through our small class. We heard some hurried footsteps out in the hallway, someone going to/coming from the bathroom or a teacher or principal spreading the news, I don't know. My eyes were glued to the screen. Time went by, I'm not sure how long it was, but the second I turned my eyes away from the screen, my friend next to me gasped so loud that I whipped my head back--I felt my stomach lurch as I watched the first tower begin to crumble. Soon after that (Or was it a while? Time was doing its own thing.), I saw it start to happen and yelled out, "There goes the second one!" I heard some more noises from the hall: hurried footsteps, some crying. The news was also talking about the Pentagon having been hit as well. I remember the teacher saying something about calling family members, and all I could think of was my dad, as I knew he was working at the time as an electrician in northern Virginia and I had thought near or in Washington, DC (I later found out he wasn't anywhere near the Pentagon, though he was able to see the smoke from his job site), and my oldest brother, who at the time worked on an upper floor in a high-rise building in Philadelphia. Even though it wasn't anywhere near the attacks, my over-reacting mind had this thought that the entire nation was under attack, and therefore he was in danger as well. That, and I'd heard about the plane in Pennsylvania, but I didn't know where it was.
The rest of that day was a blur, again because all I could think about was my dad and my brother. People spoke in hushed, excited voices. Some students wanted to leave. It was a terrible, horrible day. And we as a nation will never forget it.
So we're sitting at the kitchen table where we do homeschooling and I told him that today is Friday, September 11. I told him that it's also known as Patriot Day or Remembrance Day. Then I went on to tell him the history.
Me: A long time ago--fourteen years--something really bad happened.
Jake: What happened?
Me: Some really bad men took over some planes and hurt (*hesitation*) and killed a lot of people. Do you remember seeing the pictures on the computer that mommy was looking at? And the video of the construction job with the cranes building something.
Jake: Yeah.
Me: Well, the pictures had two towers, known as the Twin Towers, because they looked the same. The bad men steered the planes into those towers. And those towers fell. And because of it a lot of people lost ones they loved--mommies and daddies and friends and relatives.
The entire time Jake's face was very somber, and I could tell he was trying to make it make sense to him. He looked almost about to cry when he asked me the question.
"But why did they do that, mommy? Why?"
All I could come up with to make it simplistic enough for him was, "Because they were very bad men."
I didn't go into any more detail than that, and yes, I left out the Pentagon and the Pennsylvania flight because after that question and seeing his expression I was afraid either I'd lose it or I scare him too much. Again, I don't know what possessed me to tell my young son those things. A part of me was thinking to show him good and evil, and cause and effect. A part of me was just trying to throw some history into our homeschooling.
Each year I see people remembering that day, whether on my Facebook feed or on the news. I remember that day. I was in French class in high school. Mrs. Blankenbaker had given us some work and then left the room. She came back in with a TV, and we all got excited as students do, thinking we were going to get to watch a movie or something and wouldn't have to do much work. The teacher said nothing to us as she closed the door and went about setting up the TV. She turned it on, but didn't put in a movie. Instead, she switched it to the news. An image of the Twin Towers, one smoking, came on the screen. I think she may have explained what was going on, but I don't really remember as I listened to the news anchor describing the scene. We all forgot about our work and moved closer, I sat on the floor with some of my friends. Then the second plane hit the second tower. There was a collective gasp through our small class. We heard some hurried footsteps out in the hallway, someone going to/coming from the bathroom or a teacher or principal spreading the news, I don't know. My eyes were glued to the screen. Time went by, I'm not sure how long it was, but the second I turned my eyes away from the screen, my friend next to me gasped so loud that I whipped my head back--I felt my stomach lurch as I watched the first tower begin to crumble. Soon after that (Or was it a while? Time was doing its own thing.), I saw it start to happen and yelled out, "There goes the second one!" I heard some more noises from the hall: hurried footsteps, some crying. The news was also talking about the Pentagon having been hit as well. I remember the teacher saying something about calling family members, and all I could think of was my dad, as I knew he was working at the time as an electrician in northern Virginia and I had thought near or in Washington, DC (I later found out he wasn't anywhere near the Pentagon, though he was able to see the smoke from his job site), and my oldest brother, who at the time worked on an upper floor in a high-rise building in Philadelphia. Even though it wasn't anywhere near the attacks, my over-reacting mind had this thought that the entire nation was under attack, and therefore he was in danger as well. That, and I'd heard about the plane in Pennsylvania, but I didn't know where it was.
The rest of that day was a blur, again because all I could think about was my dad and my brother. People spoke in hushed, excited voices. Some students wanted to leave. It was a terrible, horrible day. And we as a nation will never forget it.
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