9/11/2013

12 years.

Is there really anything to say at this point that hasn't been before?  Every year we talk about where we were, we remember the people who died, who were hurt, who were emotionally scarred forever.

What I wonder though - does the pain ever get any less for those who were directly involved?  Those children who grew up without a parent?  The babies that were born that year are 7th graders this year.  The kids that would have been around my kid's ages at the time would be 19 and 22.  Adults.  They were too young to understand what it all meant at the time, so what do they think now that they are all grown up?  That the parent that they lost has been gone longer than they knew them at all?  It would all see so strange.

Less than 2 months after 9/11 happened, Mat and I moved to San Diego.  I had known for months I was going, but all of the sudden, it seemed wrong to go.  Wrong to move all the way across the country when we were all trying to still make sense of what happened.  But that is what happens, right?  Life moves on.  Mat had a job, I had a job.  We had to go.

The first month in San Diego was a disaster.  The movers had "lost" our stuff - we sat in an empty apartment night after night hoping the next day our stuff would arrive.  My new job was okay, but not great.  Mat tried to get settled into a new job while we were dealing with so much CRAP around us.

Then....things got better.  I got a new job.  We got pregnant with Arlington.  We started to make really good friends.  The weather was always beautiful - even in February.  Then we had a baby to occupy our time.

Before we knew it, three years had gone by.  So much had changed.  Impending doom was a distant past for us.

Since 9/11, we have lived in San Diego, West Palm Beach, Connecticut and now Massachusetts.  We had made life long friends all along the way.  Each place was harder to leave than the last because now not only were we leaving our grown up friends, our kids were leaving their friends.

12 years have gone by so fast.  The baby I used to long for is now 10 1/2 years old.  I went from being a full time nurse to a full time mom - a job I never thought I would have.  I went from being a 26 year old childless woman to a 38 year old mother of 3.  A lifetime of memories made.

So for those families who have spent these 12 years grieving their lost ones, or having nightmares over and over about what they witnessed on 9/11 - know that even thought time moves on and things drastically change over 12 years, on 9/11 every year, we come back together.  That day is NEVER far from our minds.  We don't forget what your suffering was and still is.

Tomorrow - another day.  I wonder what the next 12 years will bring.