Friday 14 September


What can anyone possibly say about what happened this week.

You'll know what I mean.  Tuesday, September 11, marked the worst
terrorist attack in our history (maybe anyone's history); the most
devastating thing that I can remember in my entire life.

I only hope that it is the worst thing that will ever happen in your
lives.

How could someone be so full of hatred that they could do such a
monstrous thing?  Not just some*one*, but dozens or hundreds of
fanatics must have planned for years to bring these events about.

You know what happened -- you'll have been raised with this as part of
your consciousness; part of your patriotism; part of who you are.
After this week, nothing will be the same.

I always thought that the terrible wars and horrors of hatred were
part of history, not part of my life.  I knew, of course, that
terrible things still happened -- in South Africa, in Bosnia, in
China, in Cambodia, in Iraq and Libya and Israel and Afghanistan.  I
knew that we should do anything we can to stop those atrocities.  But
at the same time, those events were so far away, I truly believed they
wouldn't touch us, and more than that, that our way of life -- though
very, very far from perfect -- was a better way, that would make a
difference.  I believed that someday tolerance and democracy would be
the way everyone lived.

Now I don't know what I believe, or what will happen.

If there are people in the world who can even *think* about flying not
just one but three -- and there were meant to be four, or maybe more
-- airplanes into buildings full of people -- thousands of people, who
had never done anything to them -- If such people can exist, and not
just think such thoughts, but find the power and the resources, and
the followers, to carry out such an evil mission -- How can love win
over such evil, such hatred?

I want to believe it will.  I always believed that it was somehow
inevitable that we won the American Revolution, the Civil War, the
great World Wars of last century -- that good *must* prevail.

I know that we as a nation are meant to hold our heads high, to
believe we can win this war -- against whom we don't really know --
but I am so frightened.

How could this happen?

I've been telling myself for the last three and a half days not to
cry, NOT to cry, because once I started, I didn't know whether I could
ever stop.

I wonder if I ever will.

Sometimes I forget briefly, for a few seconds or minutes -- or even
hours -- and then the image of a plane crashing into a building
recalls itself to my mind, unbidden; or I catch sight of an American
flag on a car or a mailbox or a highway overpass; or I see a newspaper
or a headline; or someone says something to remind me, and the tears
well up again.

I do have hope, and belief in our future.  I just wonder what that
future will look like.

Tonight you're both sleeping over at XX's house.  You were excited
about it -- we'd planned it long before September 11.

At the time, I thought I would relax and celebrate my momentary
freedom.

I didn't know that I'd be spending this time mourning -- indulging in
the ability to mourn without worrying about protecting you from the
pain and the grief.  Someday you will know those feelings, but today
you don't need to -- you are too young to understand (but then, *none*
of us understand).  But you are old enough to be afraid, or insecure,
or frightened -- and I don't want you to.

You both know what happened, at some level, and I've answered your
questions.  But I've tried to shield you from the news, from the
headlines, from the terrible and frightening images of death and fear
and terror.

                                      ***

I love you both, and will protect you with every ounce of my being.
We *will* prevail and make this world -- or at least our corner of it
-- a place where you will be happy and proud to grow up and raise your
children and grandchildren.

All my love -
Mommy