We Remember. Let's Roll.

(Originally posted September 11, 2010)

It does seem fitting that perhaps the most tragic day in our nation's modern history shares its digits with the nationally recognized code for emergency distress - distressed was certainly how I felt in the aftermath of that event.

In the summer of 2001, we'd just moved to the Springs with Grace in tow, just a mere 7 months after her birth. We were staying with Craig's mom and I had just gotten an unusually cranky infant back to sleep when, bleary eyed, I decide to give up the effort at sleep and head upstairs for coffee. I entered the living room to find my mother-in-law already up - and sitting in the living room with the tv on...an unusual workday routine for her. I opened my mouth to ask what was up, but then couldn't tear my eyes from the images on the screen. With her face in her hands, Mom turned to me and said bleakly, "I think a plane flew into the World Trade Center."

So we watched. And waited - with increasing scores of Americans worldwide, tuning in instantly as word rapidly spread. On that couch, sitting next to Mom, silence seemingly hanging thick everywhere, we watched the second plane careening into the second tower - and could only gasp in shock and then weep in despair as it hit its mark.

Last year, we began the process of educating our two oldest children about the events of that day. We explain to them this was a day of passing - passing of dreams and of hopes and securities and, yes, certainly of life. We tell them Satan started that day, but God finished it: we illuminate that truth with stories regaling the heroism of police, firefighters, emergency responders, and everyday passersby, giving their lives to save others. We remind them that heroes lived - and died - in two other places, as well. We explain the Pentagon. And I've told them the story of Flight 93, in as much detail as is yearly appropriate. I tell them of the anthem, "Let's Roll" and how it was the favorite of Todd Beamer who, against all odds and in the face of almost-certain death, gathered flight attendants, a wrestler, a businessman, a teacher, a coach, and a ragamuffin band of other agents to stand against their hijackers...and, in giving their lives, they spared every one of those at The White House or Capitol or some other vital mark.


We do not fill our children with hate for the souls at the controls of those four planes or for any of the master planners, for that matter; though, we certainly tell them that the want to hate is understandable and, perhaps, even practical. Yet, we saw how big the souls of mankind can be that day. We saw acts of goodness heretofore only imagined in the face of such agony. We saw good conquer evil, if only in the aftermath. And, in the end, what else can we teach them? For we do not want them to hate as we are hated, but to love in spite of it.

Because the aftermath is sometimes the only chance we've got to answer the call of 911.

And we remember.
And we roll.