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Apologies

© Kerry Hook

I must apologize to my loyal readership for not having written anything recently, but ever since the September 11 attacks, I haven't felt much like writing.

The day of the attacks, I kept the news from my daughter. I picked her up from school early, and found the school on lock down. Instead of going home, we went looking for a cat, something she had wanted for a long time. I kept the radio turned off because the news was all over the airwaves.

Just before we turned in for the night, I realized that she would undoubtedly hear about this at school, so I briefly mentioned that a plane had crashed into a building. When she came home the next day, she told me a classmate had said that people were jumping out of the building. I would rather my 6 year old hadn't heard that horrifying detail!

We went grocery shopping, and the local Kroger was announcing every few minutes that you could make donations to the fund for the victims of the World Trade Center terrorist attack.

It became very clear that I couldn't shield my daughter from an event of this magnitude. All I could do was keep the news to a minimum, and keep it at a level that she could comprehend. Experts agree that children should not be exposed to repeated images of the attacks, and that explanations should be at an age appropriate level.

In the days since the attack, my daughter has learned such words as "terrorism, Bin Laden, Afghanistan, and death to America." I realize that life in this country may never be the same, though I still cling to the hope that this is only a passing thing.

I wonder and worry at what the next attack will bring. What kind of an America will my daughter grow up in?

I am deeply saddened that the attack increased the number of single parent families. A ground war in Afghanistan may further increase the number of single moms when our soldiers die in battle. All anyone can do is hope that more losses are kept to a minimum.

This whole event is virtually incomprehensible to me, and so I find solace in the small things. I am ever so thankful for the tiny arms that reach up around my neck for hugs, for the frantic "mommy, mommy " when my daughter has exciting things to tell me at the end of her school day, and for the limp, heavy, yet fragile body I carry to bed when she has fallen asleep on the sofa. She has such an angelic look of bliss on her sleeping face - she is beautiful. She is happy and she is healthy. I am thankful for the very humorous things that she says and the very simple way she sees the world.

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