5 years ago, today......

I was @ home. I normally DON'T turn on the tv during the day, homeschooling, ya know.

DH was still an exterminator.
He called me, I'm remembering it being like 10 am but it obviously, must've been much earlier...

He says: We're being attacked!
Then I respond: by bees?
Him: we're on the news!
Me: i'm thinking, oh cool, The Bugman is on tv, maybe they are interviewing him for his expertise in Africanized Honey bees (aka: killer bees)
I ask: the Bugman?
He answers: No! Turn on the tv.
I think I asked him what channel & he said ANY channel.
Then he told me a plane hit the WTC & they think there's one flying over LA right now.

He was listening to Howard Stern as it happened....I turned on the tv. AND WHY didn't ANYONE else call & tell me? goodness!

I sat down & just sat there staring @ the television. For the first time I wanted to cry FOR my country. I could NOT believe it.

I thought of a scene from some old movie, I don't remember what movie it was, but there is a scene where Kennedy has just been shot, it shows a street in a small town, it looks like a ghost town & there is nothing but silence & a few people walking, crying. The narrator is talking about his mother crying that day or something, the loss of innocence or something.

In that moment, I finally understood that scene of that movie. I knew EXACTLY the feeling they were trying to convey.

I watched it w/ lil e & I held back my tears for him but I just wanted to really cry.
I saw the person or persons jump from the windows. I saw the 2nd plane hit. I saw them collapse.

Liberty is part of that "after 9/11 baby boom", born 9 mos later. Liberty seemed like a fitting name.

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DH was still an exterminator & the best BEE guy they had, so naturally when I heard the word 'attacked' I though 'bees'. lol

Because WHAT ELSE would I have thought of @ that point in time...see? No one could have expected THAT.

Now....if I hear the word attacked, I'm NOT thinking bees.....I'm thinking 'terrorists'.

I just thought of HOW our life has changed.........I used to think it cool that my kidbits could NOT comprehend being told to 'sit in the back of the bus' or going to school ONLY w/ children of thier same 'color', or having an entire race 'enslaved' based merely on thier skin tone. It makes no sense to them....BUT now they live in a world where they are afraid to fly in an airplane. (oldest, anyway)

They will NEVER know what it's like to see a loved one off @ the airport by waiting w/ them the entire time & watching the plane go down the runway. Now, they have to give a hasty good bye @ the curb! kwim?

It is now be commonplace to go through the metal detectors @ the airport, take off your shoes, not bring water ect. They clearly will KNOW the word terrorist in thier vocabulary now.

So we traded the word segregation for terrorist?