Wild World

Collage "Memorial" was created by Andrew Emil age 15
From the book "The Day the World Changed"



As last Sunday's details began to unfurl, my Miss Mary began to ask all sorts of questions.
Mary is very aware of what goes on around her and she doesn't miss much.

I was paralyzed by the enormity of addressing the subject with her. I really didn't know where to begin.

Truth be told, I knew that she would have questions.As I was watching the reverie going on after President Obama's announcement , I was grappling with feelings of sadness and loss. I was thinking of healthy, intelligent ways I could convey the dreadful story. I made a note to self that I would clearly and concisely discuss the subject if she asked me about it. After all, Mary is a smart, tough cookie.

I was then actually faced with the insurmountable task of explaining that horrible day. I immediately flew into "my seat of the pants mode". I decided for lack of a better solution,on my part, to leave out a lot of detail.


I started with her questions.First question being, who was Osama bin Laden? I offered out a fairytale like statement "Osama bin Laden was a very ,very bad man."
Next were questions like, why was he bad? and that led to much stuttering and back peddling on my part.

I could have really used the news post from this blog at that point.

I didn't want to scare the hell out of her. Details of 9/11 are so daunting and not easy to convey to a seven year old kid who worries about every natural and unnatural disaster in the world.
I did want her to understand that the way that our world worked had changed dramatically on that day.

I thought about how I could talk to her about the mourning for all of the people lost in the 9/11 attacks and their families.
I could explain that I didn't think it was appropriate to be partying in the streets as if we were going to hang Mr bin Laden's head in the Lincoln Memorial.
I couldn't say that I knew that the death of Mr bin Laden does not mean the end of the struggle.
I could say that it is a good thing that America feels that it is safer and stronger now that he is gone.
I thought I would evoke wisdom and provide comfort. I would not admit that I was so confused by everyone's elation and relief over the Mr bin Laden's death, this was not a happy time.

Of course when the moment arose, I went back to the seat of my pants. I lolled into my "once upon a time" cadence .I explained to Mary, that Mr bin Laden was a bad man, who killed many people and did many bad things,for reasons that we couldn't understand and that now he too had been killed.

Mary responded by saying,"This whole story is sad, very sad."