August 15 ~ 9/11 Memorial Site

Our last stop of the day was to try and find the 9-11 Memorial Site that was being built at a local park, the park we actually used to live right by when we first moved here.

This made me a bit somber...  because anytime you hear "9-11" you are instantly transported back to that day.  Suddenly you are thinking of where you were at that exact time, that exact day...

Calahan was 5 years old, and I tried to keep him from it.  The new reel that burns into your brain of the planes hitting the twin towers ...  but he saw, because they replayed it for days and days...   the whole country changed that day.

So we're excited to have a piece of that here.  We're honored ...

Well, shortly before my Godmother got here, we had gotten the pieces from the site, for the site.   We got a couple of beams from the Twin Towers and some pieces from the Pentagon ...

When we first got to the park, we searched and searched and couldn't find it, and then I realized it was probably on the other side of the water that almost split the park in half.   Sure enough, I was right....

So the pieces were on a trailer at the time.....

Everyone came out to see other than Noah.  Calahan was going on and on about his thoughts of where that beam must have been and how the plane must have hit it in order for it to twist like that.  We reminded him that the entire building had twisted and collapsed.  But he has to be right - he's a teen - you know how teens know everything ....

But I just wanted Noah to see.

While I was pregnant with Calahan ...... the Oklahoma City Bombing happened.  I was crushed - all those babies, and here I was pregnant with my first.  Then when I was pregnant with Noah, on September 11, 2001 ...  I woke up like normal, nauseated, turned on Good Morning America to half sleep through ...  but I couldn't sleep.  They broke in with the news of the first plane hitting... and I watched - live - as the second plane hit.  News trickling in about the Pentagon and the plane that went down in Pennsylvania that was destined for the White House.   I remember how numb I was.  How I was in shock.  I remember ushering Calahan in the other room and turning on cartoons or videos to keep him occupied and so he didn't see the gruesome  images I couldn't seem to pull myself away from watching.  I didn't want him seeing, but by the end of the day, I tearfully explained to him - in 5 year old terms - what happened.

Noah didn't go through that day.  He was tucked inside me feeling my emotions, I'm sure, but he was in a safe little environment....

So when we got home, from the day, Calahan and I sat down with Noah and told him what happened, why that little park is important...  and I showed him video....   now he understands.