Remembering

So hard to believe it's the 10th anniversary already. I hesitate to even post about it, because I don't really have the right words to do it justice. Of course I think about it every year on 9/11, but this year is obviously bigger. 10 years. How can that be possible? It is also the first year, for us, that the kids are more aware. I think Liam gets it. Natalie had kind of tuned it out until tonight watching some of the things on tv before the football game. That led to quite a few questions at bedtime about who died, if any children died, what happened if a child had both parents die, what if that child had no family at all to take them in. I tried to just answer with basic facts, but I don't know that I did enough to reassure her.

My own memories have faded. It still makes me sad, but it doesn't always have that gut-wrenching effect that it did at first. So I was a little surprised this week, while listening to an interview on NPR in the car. There are so many stories. All sad. And yet, this interview made me gasp out loud once more and brought tears to my eyes again. He was a firefighter who was in the 2nd tower when it fell, and survived, along with his crew. They were on the 4th floor, in approximately the middle of the building, and everything fell around them. They pretty much had to be exactly where they were to survive. Amazing. But what made me gasp was to hear, in his own voice, the description of hearing and feeling the building fall. He had heard on his radio that the first tower fell, so he knew what was happening. He heard as the floors collapsed down, one on top of the other, bam, bam, bam. He heard the twisting metal. Then couldn't breathe as all the dust and debris filled his eyes, nose, throat. He was so calm describing it. But I couldn't get the sound of those floors pancaking together out of my head. He is still a firefighter, and that is amazing. What strength that must take.

So, I remember, and I am still able to be moved all over again.