How Do You Explain the Unthinkable

Today is Sep. 11. A day most will never forget but I can't seem to remember. I remember waking up and being in a panic. A panic to find my father who was supposed to be in the pentagon for a meeting that morning. He is one of the stories of meetings canceled, woke up late, took a different way to work that were not where they were supposed to be. If he was this would be a whole different story. After that it was just a blur. Still twelve years later I have not been able to make myself go to the pentagon memorial.

Back then I only had one child. Roger was two years old. The others were not born yet. Yet they hear about it at school. The school has their moment of silence every year. They hear about it from teachers. I heard on our news today the anchors saying schools should not talk about this. That kids should be shielded from all the bad in the world.

I don't agree. No matter what they are going to know. They know something happened. Maybe they do not need to know all the details but knowing about it is not a bad thing. I heard something a few years ago that has stuck with me. A member of the Army said "We need to remember today, but we don't need to remember the hurt and anger. It is better to remember the heroes of the day and all the good surrounding the day. Neighbor helped neighbor and this great country stood as one. That is what we should remember not the anger. If we only look back in anger than the terrorists have won."

So we do talk to our kids. We tell them some bad men did a bad thing. More so we focus on the heros. We focus on the lives lost. We look at them not the bad guy. The terrorist don't deserve a moment in this day. They are nothing. The heros. The normal everyday americans who lost their lives that day. This is their day.

There is no right way to explain the unthinkable. You do what you feel is best.