Reflecting on 9-11

Yes, it’s been 2 days since the anniversary of 9-11, but it doesn’t mean I haven’t been thinking about it. I had intended to write on the actual anniversary, but I found too many thoughts crowding my head. I decided it was best to put it aside and help the kids understand the day, talk about what was happening in our house on that day and then take them out to the Patriot’s Day Festival.

We walked over to the plaza near our house and the kids were able to meet members of the SWAT team, try on some of their gear, tour a fire truck, enjoy a couple of bouncy houses and take in the sights from many booths.

I was thinking about this group of my 4 youngest kiddos and I didn’t even have 3 of them when 9-11 occurred! My brother was living with me and Clay was 2 days away from pulling in after a 6-month deployment. One of my sisters called me and told me to turn the TV on. After I did, I went and woke up my brother. We sat with the older kids and watched things unfold. We wondered if we were going to continue seeing tragedy after tragedy come across the U.S. from the East Coast to the West. I wondered if the ships would pull in or if they would be sent back out and I wondered what it was going to mean for us, as a military family and community. Those are hard things to try to share with kids who weren’t even born yet. And in light of how much my life has changed since then, it was really too much of a challenge to do too much remembering.

But I was thinking, with great pride, about all I saw happen around me-the incredible sense of community and the intense feeling of pride that we each felt for all those we knew who had been and continued to fight for all of our freedoms. Amazing! Living in a military community brings something with it that is tough to put into words. But all of you who have experienced it know exactly what I’m saying.

God Bless America and all those who risk everything each day that they go to work. And God bless their families~

This entry was posted on September 13, 2011 at 4:15 pm and is filed under community, family life. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.