Reliving 9/11 With Our 8 Year Old

Our daughter is eight years old, and was thus not alive when the attacks on September 11th happened in 2001.

In the lead-up to the tenth anniversary tomorrow, there has been a substantial uptick in images from the attacks showing up at random on television, even on the usually more sedate children's channels like Nickelodeon.  Which has led to some interesting questions from The Peanut of late.

I've been struggling on how to make something so horribly complex, difficult, and emotionally tough as the attacks on 9/11 make sense to our child who has only really experienced the aftermath.

I am finding that the images of that day bring back some serious raw emotion for me -- I can clearly remember sitting on our couch in the living room in shock, as they replayed the footage of the planes hitting the towers over and over and over again, or of people escaping the flaming remnants of the Pentagon.

Then there is the pain of loss that any of us carry who knew someone who perished.  I can clearly recall finding out that a girl that I had known in elementary school, whose mother was one that I'd known in our community the entire time I was growing up, and whose older sister I had played with on the playground a lot as a kid...that this beautiful, young girl had been killed, her gentle, glowing smile forever gone in the horrific attack.   I'd known her only a bit, but it was a sharp, gnawing pain for me.

When you consider how painful it must have been for those who lost a parent or child?  Or whole units of friends in public service jobs?  It just becomes brutally crushing.

At the time of the attacks, I was working as an assistant prosecutor, dealing every single day with police officers and other emergency services providers on the front lines of community protection.  So the ever-mounting losses of the NYPD and the NYFD were starkly real for me -- and for every other American who worked in any sort of law enforcement or public service capacity.  These were all of our brothers and sisters.

Since that day, we have sent so many of our nation's uniformed finest into harm's way -- in Afghanistan, in Iraq, and too many other places by and between for fueling and supply chain management...including members of my own family and too many friends to count.


The Peanut has been aware of a lot of the aftermath, because it has touched so much of our own lives.  For example, we often buy a meal for soldiers when they are dining at a restaurant (anonymously whenever possible, because it's more fun that way for us), or pick up a coffee or meal at the airport when they are near enough to us in line to make it work.  And we explain to her why we are saying "thank you" to them for serving. 

We also contribute to programs that work with people who need a hand, both internationally and here in the US -- and I try to explain to her each time why giving someone a hand and showing compassion for someone who needs help is so important.

But how can you ever explain the initial, wholesale, evil attack itself?  I keep falling back the words from Sting's beautiful song, Fragile:

Perhaps this final act was meant
To clinch a lifetime's argument
That nothing comes from violence
and nothing ever could
For all those born beneath an angry star
Lest we forget how fragile we are

As we move forward in time, the wound begins to heal...but it still feels awfully raw, doesn't it? It does to me, anyway, and the renewal of images from the attacks on my television feels almost like a visual violation of sorts.

Having to explain all of this to my daughter in terms that an 8 year old can not only process but talk about more deeply has been a tough one.

Fear can be a powerful motivator for action, but I am constantly trying to make her understand that decisions made in fear are not always the most solid ones.  That caution is good, but only when you don't allow it to slip into a blinding paranoia.  That over-generalization can be as bad as under-analysis for fear of offending someone.  That not only should you not be afraid to fly in an airplane, but that refusing to give in to fear is exactly the best way to say "I refuse to let you win" to the bad people who tried to inflict fear in the first place.

Just call it my tribute to Winston Churchill, if you will.

I want her to understand that sometimes bad people do bad things and there is nothing any of us can do to stop them.  But that we all try to do what we can, and that in general, most people try to do good things -- that it is very important that we should strive to do good things whenever possible.

In the end, that is what moves us all forward together.

(Photo via hepp.  Beautifully delicate shot, isn't it?  Love this one.)