Remembering

My life has changed in many ways since the eventful and horrible day that we call 9-11. I remember feeling anxious for a friend whose baby was due in a few months, feeling like we were going through a doorway away from a world to which we could never return. That baby is now a first-grade boy, with a little sister. He has read all of the Harry Potter books that his parents would allow (the later ones will have to wait until he's older).

I remember feeling a desperate need to invoke some sort of emergency clause to allow Bill Clinton to step back in as president. That we were seriously f'd with a deer in the headlights, idiot president and commander in chief. I still feel the part about being f'd with the idiot leader but now he's a lame duck deer in the headlights. And I have tremendous hope for the future of this country with the upcoming election.

I remember riding my bike to work with my walkman radio tuned to NPR, barely able to breathe or see because each new piece of news left me sobbing, gasping, crying. I did not see the images on the news that morning, or for many days, because the audio alone was so incredibly painful, I could not bear to see what was being aired over, and over, and over. Now I can view the footage without coming apart. Barely.

I remember thinking that it was so unfair to my friend's soon to arrive baby, to all the babies and children yet to come, that we lived in a world where people could dream of such horror on such a scale, plan it, and execute it successfully. Now I have a four year old child who tells me over dinner that she is going to be a peace hero like Martin Luther King.

Many things have changed for me in seven years, but I believe my lifetime will pass with this day always being a day for reflection, for holding to hope while sorrow takes hold, and for striving to nurture the peace hero in myself and all those around me.