On September 11th, 2001 I was living in a two bedroom suite with my then 7 year-old son and two cats. I worked full-time as a server....screw it I was a waitress and a pretty good one too.....and drove a red 1991-Volkswagen Golf that was wicked on gas - 'cause it was a diesel - but a nightmare if something went wrong which it did and often. I still have one of those original two cats wandering around here from that time....he sleeps a lot now at 16....but that car is long since scrap metal.
Anyway my life was little and small and my struggles and complaints entirely inconsequential when I awoke on that Tuesday morning to my alarm, set to CBC Radio because it was the only frickin' station that came in on that dime-store clock, blasting out reports of airplanes flying into the World Trade Centre.
It was a morning and a day, as were the following days, I will never forget. Those first images were unbelievable and I will always remember watching them from that old red velvet couch in my 500 sq.ft. home. Walking our kids to the bus-stop that morning my friend and I noticed a jet far above our kids' heads yet low enough in the sky for a look to pass between us. They were turnin' planes around and bringin' 'em down across the entire sky. Shit just got real. Should we turn our kids around and hunker down at home or send them to school?
We chose to send them to school. For me I just wanted my son's morning to carry on as it was supposed to when you're in Grade 2 with center time, inside shoes and library books. With him gone 'til 3 and a day off to myself there was nothing to do but watch, listen and wait.......and write. In 2001 I was still what I would consider a closet writer. It was before I had my married name, an e-mail address, Facebook timeline or my own crappy little blog. Whatever I wrote was in a journal, a typewriter or Word Perfect file and whoever I had the guts to actually submit to received it from an envelope with a licked stamp attached to the right-hand corner. I was still in denial that I could even CALL myself a writer....like....a real writer and between work and my son there wasn't a lot of free time to get anything of substance completed anyway.
What came out of me on 9/11 could probably go in a pile of editorial-type ramblings as high as both those fallen towers combined....by me and a kazillion other writers of any and all genres.....but at the time it was written my Letter to the Editor of a local community newspaper felt necessary. Necessary and having little to do with me and everything to do with the only honest and true words of condolence I could offer to those lost, injured and forever affected by that day.
It's been awhile since I thought of that letter but the news today had me thinkin' about it....especially as parenting FB pages and school counsellors advise us all to keep this crap as far away from our kids as possible, give us tips on how to discuss this issue with them if they hear-tell of what happened, suggestions on how to proceed so our kids stay.....kids.
Today is Monday, April 15th, 2013 and bombs have gone off at the finish line of the Boston Marathon and the first images coming out from the scene conjure up similar feelings as that Tuesday morning a dozen years ago when it was just me and my little boy. That little boy who is now almost 20 and watching the news himself. I don't shield him from this tragedy anymore....that ship has sailed.......I can no longer protect him from finding out the dark deeds of the world.
There is still innocence to be protected in my home. Twelve years after my first son's arrival I gave birth to my second son, with my husband of almost ten years now, and three years after that I gave birth to our youngest, my little girl.
My wee lad attends Grade 1 in the same elementary school as his much-loved older brother. Often I have a weird Twilight Zone-type mind fart while wandering the halls with my 3 year old as we wait for her brother to finish for the day. Class pictures line the walls as far back as the 80s and my older son's class picture now appears to be showing the different generation they've now settled into to. A generation unaware of how important a 'text' was about to become to their adolesence, unaware how quickly information, music and images would be made available to them before they left high school.
Protecting my little boy from the tragedy of Newton this past December was SO important to both my husband and myself but, of course, it was technology that snuck in to bite us in the ass. I had PVR'd a show for my little guy.....a Wild Kratts or some other animal show he loves......and unfortunately it wasn't on Treehouse or Disney Kids so the news cut in showing little kids being escorted out of the school building by armed policemen. I caught it quickly but my little son is quicker.....like the rest of his generation....and so with a total screen time of about 10 seconds he got the entire gist. And my husband and I had an entire night of questions to answer as age-appropriately and honestly as possible.
So do I have words of wisdom to share on this sad, sad day when those waiting at the finish line of what is said to be one of the most joyous marathon experiences on the planet are changed forever by bomb blasts? Maybe....maybe not. That's for whomever happens to land on this blog to decide.
All I DO know for sure is the only thing I know how to do in troubling times......to help me get my head and heart through a horror such as this.....is....write ON.
Blessings, love and healing to the city of Boston.
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