Today was her birthday!
When she woke, I would tell her the exciting news that she turned two this day. We had celebrated the weekend before with a small gathering of friends, so she had been singing the happy birthday song to herself at bedtime for a week. So sweet.
Paul was already gone. I put on the coffee and rested my 9-month pregnant self in the only comfortable chair we had in the 'little house' turning on The Today Show for company. It took me a few minutes to register what I was seeing. Smoke was coming from the World Trade Center and apparently it had been hit by an airplane.
The phone rang. It was Paul. He had turned around and was coming home. Having heard the news in the car, in progress he instinctively knew ... if he didn't get off the beltway now, he might be locked in traffic all day. He knew that people would be leaving DC. And soon.
While we were on the phone, he telling me what he had heard ... me relating what I was seeing ... while we were still talking on the phone the second tower was hit -- right then.
By the time Paul arrived home the airlines had ceased their flight schedules, and the executive order had been given to shoot down any plane that crossed our air space. They were evacuating the Capital Building, the White House, and the Pentagon, but not before the Pentagon was struck.
All day long the numbing disbelief continued. The towers collapse ... our minds going to the people ... did we know anyone there? ... the questions ... should we get out of DC? The loss. The unimaginable tragedy. The questions. Why? How? Whether we should evacuate ourselves was answered for us. Paul had been right; traffic everywhere was insane, and besides I was round-bellied and slow moving.
Helen woke that morning to sullen parents, vacillating between staring at the box and listening to talk radio all day.
We never told her it was her birthday.
