Today is the tenth anniversary of the September 11th tragedies. I watched with the rest of my senior Calculus class at Giles County High School as the second plane flew into the second tower. I saw it live.
Anyways, that's where I was on that fateful day. But Annalee, my little princess, wasn't even a twinkle in my eye at that point. I sat thinking this morning as our pastor, Brother Greg, stated that there would be a lot of questions to be answered following a video about the tragedies, how will I explain what happened on that day to Annalee when she asks?? I know it is a while before I have to worry about this, but it is something we will all have to face at some point. I looked around as all the children left the sanctuary for Children's Church and thought about how none of them had the chance to live in a pre-9/11 world. A time when we didn't think an attack on our own soil was possible. A time without fears of Anthrax attacks, without xrays at the airport, when we could take our normal shampoo and soap on a plane ride. Passports weren't necessary to go most places on vacation, usually only a birth certificate was needed. Many, many soldiers were still alive, and most soldiers fighting today were just grade schoolers. I didn't even know what a Muslim was, only knew Sadaam Husein was a mad from far away, and had no idea that my mom's favorite color (yellow) would become a color on the terror threat scale. I always thought of firefighters as heroes, but never really thought that there could be that many lost at one time.
So, what to say to your child when they ask about 9/11?? Well, here is my idea:
There were some people who were very confused. They thought that their god (who is not the same as our God) wanted them to attack us in order to go to their heaven. So the men took over some airplanes and flew them into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center, which were these two very tall buildings in New York. They also flew an airplane into the Pentagon, which is where the military gets its orders, and were trying to fly one into the White House, where the president lives, but some very brave passengers overtook them and it crashed in a field instead. After the towers were hit with the planes, alot of police officers, firefighters, and EMTs rushed in to help get the people out. The bad thing is, one of the towers collapsed, and then the other, and a lot of people died. After that, we went far away where the bad people lived and had to fight to find the people responsible. Now alot of things have changed to make the country safer, but things are alot harder too.
I will tell her how much simpler things were before all of this, but that no matter what happens or has happened, God was and will always be there for us and her. And so will her Daddy and I.
What will you tell your children about the events of 9/11??
In Christian Love,
LeAnn
No comments:
Post a Comment