Sitting on the floor with a toddler exploring trains. The radio plays music interspersed with local news in the background. The DJ announces evacuations in lower Manhattan …and why.
I think it must be a really bad “joke.” —and turn the radio off. Oblivious to the change, he hands me tracks that need fixing. As I show him how to put the tracks back in place, the phone rings. Parents are frightened. Although they know it already, they need to hear that their children are OK. I explain New York is not in our playroom, their children are reading books, singing songs and getting ready for snack.
Like them New York is on my mind, and in my heart. I ache for the loss to affected families and the trauma to the children in New York, and all around our country. I ache, wondering if my own children (in schools only a few blocks from home) are OK.
Later my own children arrive home. Agitated & Afraid, they will be OK. One tells me that a classmate (who is Muslim) was pulled from class. Days later we learned their parent was working in the towers and now missing.
In the days, weeks, months to follow; today, I think of that child in my remembrance of 9/11. Unlike my children and my childcare kiddos, I can’t be sure, can’t know if that child is OK.
394605 01: A view from the Hudson River of lower Manhattan’s financial district, including the World Trade Center Twin Towers in an undated photo in New York City. (Photo by Getty Images)