Without 9/11
I’m a happy person for the most part. I really am. I feel like I should write a sunnier piece one of these days, but 9/11 is not the day I’ll be doing that.
Last night I mentioned 9/11 to my 11-year-old son, and he responded with a quizzical look. I asked him if he knew what happened on September 11, 2001, and he did not. This was amazing to me, and I didn’t know whether to think of it as a parenting win or a parenting fail. How wonderful it would be to live in his world, the one where 9/11 doesn’t exist.
Of course my asking made him curious, and so I had to decide whether to burst his bubble. I decided to give him just the rough outlines and promised to fill in more details sometime later.
I think about 9/11 a lot, and I have written a few reflections over the years. I published one here a couple years ago, and I think it’s worth sharing again: 20 Years Later.