On the morning of Monday, September 10th, I kissed my children and sent them off to school. Hours later, I watched them skip off the school bus and rush into the house, beaming with pride as they showed me their school papers and artwork. I helped them as they sat around the kitchen table doing their homework and my husband and I enjoyed gathering around the table to eat dinner after our usual prayer of thanks. We helped them prepare their clothes for school the next day and then tucked them into bed. I enjoyed the peace and quiet that night once all their little voices were silent, all their eyes were closed and all of their bodies were sleeping soundly and safely in their beds.
The next morning, Tuesday, September 11th, I kissed my husband good-bye as he went off to work and I woke up my oldest daughter and helped her get ready for school. I kissed her good-bye and watched her walk to her bus. I thought about what a wonderful daughter she is, how big she’s getting and how much more beautiful she gets everyday. I then woke up my other two daughters and went through the same routine with them. As they got on the bus outside my door, I waved to them with extreme pride and as I do everyday, thought about how blessed we truly am. As I picked up my three-year-old son and shut the door, my phone rang. My father was on the other end telling me what happened and instinctively, I turned on the news. At that moment, our lives had changed forever. I immediately made the first of several calls to my husband at work that day, as he is from New York and has many family members living and working there.
I sat glued to the television for the remainder of the day as I hugged my son and tried to explain why I wasn’t in the mood to play. At 3:15, my eleven-year-old ran through the door and hugged me tight. Soon thereafter, my other two children ran through the door screaming that a bad man flew a plane into a big building. Although my husband and I discussed it all day, we still did not know what to tell our children. However, the time had come. They had questions and wanted answers. I tried to ensure them that their Daddy and I would take all of the appropriate measures to ensure their safety. I had no answers to their questions. We didn’t know who did this. We didn’t know why they did this. And we didn’t know why they hated America and Americans. For the past eleven years, we have always had answers to their questions. We have always been able to make them feel safe and secure and we have always been able to allow them to play, and laugh, and feel like children. But on that day, we weren’t able to do that.
I didn’t see the pride on their faces and the school papers waving in their hands. I didn’t see them sit around the table or help them with their homework. I didn’t put my heart into the preparation of dinner and we certainly did not say our “usual” prayer of thanks before dinner. It was much different that night. It was harder to settle them down at bedtime as we watched my four small children cram themselves into one small bed. We didn’t enjoy the peace and quiet that night once they had finally fallen into a sound sleep, although I doubt is was very sound. Instead, we sat staring through tear-filled eyes at the television, watching the horror over and over again. We talked about our freedom and how we had taken that for granted. We talked about how lucky we were to be able to kiss our children good-bye, wave at them as they go off to school, and how fortunate we are to be watching them grow day after day. We wished that we could turn back the clock. We wished that our freedom was not jeopardized and we wished that life in America was as normal and peaceful as it was only 24 hours prior. On a daily basis, we speak to our kids. We answer questions as best as we can and we accept the hugs and kisses they so frequently offer as we cry. They want to return the favor and make our boo-boos better with a hug and a kiss just as we have always done with them.
Each of our children deals with these tragedies differently and on an age-appropriate level. Although our son is only three years old, he’s a different child. He is now a child that can recognize the president of our country by name and by sight. He is a child that knows there are bad people in the world that will fly an airplane into a building. He is a child that loves fire trucks, police cars and ambulance vehicles more so than he ever did. He is a child of three years old that knows what a hero is. But he doesn’t understand why he knows these things.
Our daughter of five, fears that a plane will crash into her school. She wonders who will help her and who will save her. She wonders if we will come to the school to pick her up and she wonders how we will know to do that.
Our seven-year-old daughter wonders how long this war will last. She wonders how many of our planes will be used as weapons. She wonders how many people will die in them and in the buildings that will be destroyed. She feels that she understands better by seeing the pictures than by what she’s being told. And she goes outside every night, with her five-year-old sister, puts her hand over her heart and together they turn to the American flag and say the Pledge of Allegiance.
Our eleven-year-old daughter feels that it’s better for her to watch enough of the news to keep up with what is happening but knows that it’s too sad to watch too much TV. She wants everything to get back to normal.
We try very hard to deal with each and every one of their concerns. We try to ensure their safety, freedom and encourage them to play and be the children they are. They too, like other Americans feel a strong sense of patriotism. They wanted to do something to show their support not only as children but also as American citizens. Together we sat on our living room floor and made nearly 2000 red, white, and blue pins and the children distributed them to the children, faculty and staff in their schools. Amidst all the sadness, fear and change, they too are proud to be Americans.
Two weeks later, we are still learning of their fears and concerns that they continue to keep bottled up inside of them. We wonder how many more concerns they have that they’ve yet to express and therefore have not yet been dealt with. We wonder how much fear they have inside them and we wonder how long it will be before our lives are back to normal.
On September 17th, our daughter went out into the back yard with a pen and a piece of paper. As she returned about a half hour later, we knew that she had seen, heard and understood more than we ever imagined. This is what our eleven-year-old daughter wrote on that day….
The Land of The Free
The American flag
Stands tall, proud, and free
But now terrorism
Has hit our country.
We used to go to bed
Feeling snug and safe,
But now we can't sleep
We're scared wide awake.
Tragedies before this
Are now in the past.
Just as it did then
Our flag waves at half-mast.
Four planes were hijacked
On the date nine-one-one.
Two crashed in the Twin Towers
And one, in the Pentagon.
The fourth plane went down
In a field in P-A
The passengers fought back
And became heroes that day.
We don't know why they did it
We don't even know who,
All we know is they hate us.
But what did we do?
The way of showing their hate
Was in a terrible way
But the President says
That their people will pay.
We grab all our weapons
And race out the door.
The soldiers will fight
Our country's at war.
When this war is over
The world will see,
You can't mess with America,
The Land of The Free.
Natalia Gallo
9/17/01
It is amazing to us how wise our children are. It is from them that we learn and get inspired and it is through them and through God where we find our sense of strength and realize the need to keep our lives and our homes as normal as possible so that our children can continue to be children.
May God Bless America and let there be peace on Earth.
Gretchen & Nick France
