September 11th

Five years ago today we lived in Nashville. Troy was out of town in Reno for work. I was three months pregnant. Wolf was eleven months old and just learning to walk.

I was worn out by the constant nausea and vomiting from the pregnancy, and miserable with the thought of six more months of unabated sickness twenty-four hours a day and night. And this time around, I had a baby to take care of. Wolf and I had already spent whole mornings and afternoons hanging out in the bathroom, laying on the floor alternating between trying not to puke and then hoping that I would. Frankly, I had been spending a lot of time feeling sorry for myself.

At the urging of one of my saner friends (who made the obvious observation, that some time off work might help), I rearranged my calendar and made plans to go home to my parents' house for a week. They were already in Nashville and we were all planning on leaving for Florida that morning when my brother called with the news that a plane had crashed into a building in New York. Like so many others, we turned on the television to watch the news and couldn't turn away. Although I knew that Troy was in Reno, not flying that day and farther away from New York and D.C. than we were, until I could get him on the phone (and that took hours), I could not shake the irrational fear that he could be on one of the planes. In the end, it took him over a week to get out of Reno. And then he ended up flying directly to Florida to be with us.

When I think back to September 11th, I have such specific memories of watching Wolf toddle around the living room climbing onto and off of the couch, taking tentative steps between me, my mom and my dad while those images of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon played over and over again in the background on the news.

Two thoughts kept going through my head. One, I was feeling so very thankful that my parents were there with me. And, an even louder refrain, I was thankful that my children (my child, but I thought of the one growing inside me too) were too young to understand what was going on. Young enough so that I wasn't burdened with the responsibility of having to try to explain the unexplainable. I couldn't then and I can't now.

This week in Sunday's paper, I read the stories of the babies born on September 11, 2001. For about half of them, their parents have taken them to the World Trade Center site and tried in their own ways to try to explain the tragedy, and for the others, they haven't really discussed it directly because, after all, their children are just five years old. I admire the former, but I am a coward and would be (am?) in the camp with those who avoid having the discussion.

I heard two stories on the radio on my way home tonight. One, parents who lost their adult son and the other, an adult woman who lost her mother, both at the World Trade Center. Somehow I won the life lottery and that day I had both my parents and my child with me.

Now, five years later, we live in Florida so that we can be closer to our families. I'm not sure if that would've happened if it weren't for September 11th. I'm teaching more and working at the firm much less. I'm trying to shift the focus of my life away from the urgent and towards the important.

One of the discussion threads on a teaching listserv recently was about whether and how to commemorate September 11th in class today. But, I just didn't feel up to the task. And in many respects, I thought, what gall -- just because I have the attention of a room full of first year law students for an hour and fifteen minutes, does that really mean that I have the right or the duty to try to convey something meaningful about the anniversary of the tragedy? I wasn't in New York, or Washington, D.C. and I wasn't in the way you would think, actually directly touched by the events of that day. I decided not to do anything. Not because I didn't think something needed to be done, but because, like I said, I didn't feel up to the task. Then, I listened to the radio on the way to class and cried.

At 8:45, I had to stop and we ended up having a moment of silence and another at 9:06 because I couldn't not do anything. I told the class that I was just one person and the only honest thing I could convey to them and to anyone was the absolute certainty that your life can change in an instant. The country and the world changed in one day. Then, for my afternoon class, I was caught up using the new computer and projector screen and the class came and went without a mention of the date. And I know that as wrong as it felt to try to say something in the morning and not know what it would be, it was worse in the afternoon to not say anything at all.

I know without a doubt what I would do today. I would be unable to do anything other than go get my children, bring them home and hold them. I have a friend who did this on September 11th, 2001 and that is how her children knew something awful had happened. So today, with only the memory of the day, instead of going to a reception with a bunch of lawyers to schmooze up a bunch of judges, I met my family at my five year old's soccer practice. And I hugged them all.