Today, every media outlet will flow with stories and song and testimony. I could tell you exactly where I was that day, but it wouldn’t matter. What is important is that on the same day I watched images of fire and collapse span the television screen, over and over, I felt the movements of my yet-to-be-born son for the very first time.
Like a golf ball, I thought, as he did flips from one side of my stomach to the other.
It didn’t make sense, and I felt funny rejoicing. After all that was lost that day.
But there it was, anyway.
Hope.
The key to change…is to let go of fear. ~Rosanne Cash
9-11 was a seminal moment in my life. It was the beginning of the end of my former life. I had just turned 40, and realized my thirties had been a blur. Suddenly, owning a business, financial success, none of it mattered as much. The phrase, “Life’s too short,” became our catch-phrase. By 9-11-03 we had sold our portion of the business we had built, and had begun our new, simpler, more meaningful, lives.
We too eventually found peace and joy, born in change and upheaval. Beautiful post, Christi. Love the Tracy Chapman song.
Thanks for sharing this bit of your story, Vaughn. Simpler, more meaningful lives. Yes, what a beautiful focus.
Nicely said. 🙂 I was also pregnant with my daughter, and always feel a sense of loss when for one reason or another, I am not able to see her on 9/11, have you ever experienced that with your son?
Jodie
Jodie, Thank you for your comment. I hadn’t felt that anxiety in the past – at least not on this particular date 🙂 – but this year I had unsettling dreams, all born from fear. That’s why I chose the quote from Rosanne Cash. I needed to read that, especially in tumultuous times.
It is a day of rememberance, to think of those we have loved, those who are gone. I watched them go down, thought of my children in New York. Calls from the city filled the next few days, the dust ball reached my old neighborhood in Northern Manhattan, the remnants of senseless violence.
I told one of my mom/bloggers today, what has remained with those memories are the images of ground zero when it was filled with old record stores and a great place for bargains called The Pushcart. I remember when the hole was dug, the foundations put down and mostly, I remember the construction workers flirting as we walked by each day on lunch. The mixed memories of joy and hope with sadness and loss. Life in her infinite cycle driven by the passions of those who we have known before in history … those who use “faith” as a reason for hate.
Glorious to have your babe, the affirmation of life, bouncing inside of you as he bounced into your life after birth. Thanks, Christi …
You are an amazing person, Christi.