Remembering (with hope)

I wrote this post three years ago, and I've been reposting it on this day ever since. This year, for the first time since writing this post, I actually feel a glimmer, be it ever-so-tiny, of hope.

*****

For my girls in rememberance of Heather Ho.

On September 11, 2001, I was one month away from conceiving you, Bunny. My biggest priority at that time was creating our family because we had tried for almost a year to get pregnant with you. Who knew that during a time of such immense sorrow, when people everywhere retreated to the safe, warm cocoons of their homes, we would create you?

Up until that day, your father and I and everyone else in the world was living in a dream. When I say "dream" I don't mean that everyone's life was full of lollipops and rainbows and that there was no sadness and no one struggled. I say a dream because now, seven years after that day, the world is a very difference place. I'm sad about this. I might always be, a little bit. It's because I mourn what happened on that day, but I also mourn times past. The world wasn't always like this. Our lives, all of our lives, will never be the same again.

Something very bad happened on that day.

I'm not trying to scare you, my loves. I want you both to know that your father and I will try to shelter and protect you from evil, bad things for as long as we can. But soon you will be big, and you will begin to understand the world around you. We hope that you will look at it and always see the potential for good. Bunny and Wallie, it's up to you and those of your generation to forge ahead and try to mend this shattered world. Or least pick where we left off.

Our broken world wasn't always like this.

There was once a time when I could sit on a plane without furtively scanning the faces of everyone boarding, feeling nothing but shame for doing so.

In fact, there was a time when we never had to take off our shoes to get on a plane and we could take all manner of liquids and gels on board.  Also, pilots used to sometimes come out of the cockpits and walk up and down the aisles to stretch their legs. I used to love seeing them, and I especially loved when one of them was a woman.

There was once a time when I would be able to sit in a crowded theater and not think, "Look at all the people in here...together, in one place...  What if...?"

There was once a time when I could walk into my favorite restaurant and didn't have to watch the owners regarding me with sadness behind their eyes, wondering if I was one of those people that thought they were bad.

There was a time when I didn't have to be the first person to walk up to the woman wearing a hijab and abaya at Back-to-School night and give her a warm handshake and tickle her baby's toes (something I would have done anyway) to distract her from the rude stares and whispering.

There was a time when I didn't have images of big planes flying into big buildings and people holding hands falling from windows and distraught loved-ones clutching photos and pregnant widows etched into my memory forever. Who could even imagine such horror?

There was a time when I didn't have to think about what the last moments of a talented pastry chef who just moved to New York from San Francisco to work in a restaurant high in the sky must have been like.

There was a time when 2,700+ people from 90 countries were alive and well and their families and friends were whole.

There was time when I didn't worry so much.

That time ended seven years ago today.  That time—no matter how hard times were—was like a beautiful dream to me. And, girls, I so wish you could have known it.

For my girls in rememberance of Heather Ho.

On September 11, 2001, I was one month away from conceiving you, Bunny. My biggest priority at that time was creating our family because we had tried for almost a year to get pregnant with you. Who knew that during a time of such immense sorrow, when people everywhere retreated to the safe, warm cocoons of their homes, we would create you?

Up until that day, your father and I and everyone else in the world was living in a dream. When I say "dream" I don't mean that everyone's life was full of lollipops and rainbows and that there was no sadness and no one struggled. I say a dream because now, seven years after that day, the world is a very difference place. I'm sad about this. I might always be, a little bit. It's because I mourn what happened on that day, but I also mourn times past. The world wasn't always like this. Our lives, all of our lives, will never be the same again.

Something very bad happened on that day.

I'm not trying to scare you, my loves. I want you both to know that your father and I will try to shelter and protect you from evil, bad things for as long as we can. But soon you will be big, and you will begin to understand the world around you. We hope that you will look at it and always see the potential for good. Bunny and Wallie, it's up to you and those of your generation to forge ahead and try to mend this shattered world. Or least pick where we left off.

Our broken world wasn't always like this.

There was once a time when I could sit on a plane without furtively scanning the faces of everyone boarding, feeling nothing but shame for doing so.

In fact, there was a time when we never had to take off our shoes to get on a plane and we could take all manner of liquids and gels on board.  Also, pilots used to sometimes come out of the cockpits and walk up and down the aisles to stretch their legs. I used to love seeing them, and I especially loved when one of them was a woman.

There was once a time when I would be able to sit in a crowded theater and not think, "Look at all the people in here...together, in one place...  What if...?"

There was once a time when I could walk into my favorite restaurant and didn't have to watch the owners regarding me with sadness behind their eyes, wondering if I was one of those people that thought they were bad.

There was a time when I didn't have to be the first person to walk up to the woman wearing a hijab and abaya at Back-to-School night and give her a warm handshake and tickle her baby's toes (something I would have done anyway) to distract her from the rude stares and whispering.

There was a time when I didn't have images of big planes flying into big buildings and people holding hands falling from windows and distraught loved-ones clutching photos and pregnant widows etched into my memory forever. Who could even imagine such horror?

There was a time when I didn't have to think about what the last moments of a talented pastry chef who just moved to New York from San Francisco to work in a restaurant high in the sky must have been like.

There was a time when 2,700+ people from 90 countries were alive and well and their families and friends were whole.

There was time when I didn't worry so much.

That time ended seven years ago today.  That time—no matter how hard times were—was like a beautiful dream to me. And, girls, I so wish you could have known it.

Comments

[Kim]

I also conceived my oldest son one month after 9/11/01. My heart also aches that my boys will never know those relatively carefree times before that day. I miss the ease with which we would plan trips requiring air travel and not give it a second thought. I did not know anyone in the towers, the pentagon or the other flight that day but my heart goes out to their friends and families.

[Lisa K.]

Wonderfully put, Stefania. I hope we can continue to have more "glimmers" in the future so our daughters can have that same feeling.

[Lorraine]

You are such a poignant writer.
Every year I tear up as I read this post.
Thank you - once again - for expressing exactly how I feel.
Blessings.

[Rick Bucich]

Takes me back to a very vivid day, I'll never forget where I was or what I was doing. I had just dropped a friend off at the airport in Milwaukee, he was flying United. Needless to say, he drove home to California.

We lived in Fairfield County, CT immediately after Sept 11 so we we're directly impacted by more first-hand experiences there being so close to NYC.

My desk is now next to someone who worked on Wall Street that day.

Had my wife not taken the job that took us to Milwaukee, one of the other options was with a company in lower Manhattan so she would have been there that day.

I'm a dad now which makes the feelings and imagery all that much more intense.

Thank you for the post

[Kim Pearson]

Thank you.

[Kristin]

I was pregnant with my oldest son when this happened and spent a week protectively clutching my belly. A month or so later, I sat with a friend (we were both pregnant) watching as the US began to bomb the heck out of the Middle East -- we both noticed that our babies were moving and twirling inside of us...no doubt responding to our own adrenaline and our own fear.

Thanks for this -- it's beautifully articulate.

[kkonmymind]

Beautifully written. Thank you.

[mimipz5wjj]

Very well said and well put. My oldest was 6 months. We were living in England. I never felt so alone... yet at the same time, I felt not alone. I still can't think about it without crying.

[winecat]

There was a time. A mere 2 years before that there was a wedding. He waited 13 years to ask "will you marry me?"

How did this random, breathtaking, beautiful September day become "the day".
I can hardly give it another description.

It has, It was, It happened. We rejoice for LR & I for us juu(22 years now) and morn for the other people, the country, the world.

If only we could make it better.

[sara]

I was thinking about this the other night, and mourning the life of safety and security that my son will never know. And that he will grow up learning all to soon that there are bad people who want to hurt him only because he is American. But then I had a thought that gave me hope. When I was born, it was the cold war. I imagine my parents worried about their child growing up in a cold war era, always worrying whether both sides were convinced enough of the theory of mutual annihilation to prevent all out nuclear war. And then...the Berlin Wall fell, the Soviet Union broke up, and now we are living in a post cold war era. So my hope is that sometime in my son's lifetime, we will move past where we are now to a post-post-9/11 world, where maybe a glimmer of that safety and security that we took for granted pre-9/11 will return.

[Asianmommy]

What a touching post. Thanks for writing this.