Procrastination

Over the past few months these posts have become a little few and far between. I think a lot about what I should or want to put on here. Like the boys' first day of school, I did not take a single picture. First there's just me and three of them and I was very nervous about Luke's reaction and what I might have to do if he continued down the trail of tears at school. It has turned out to be a great year so far with no tears, at all. God bless his teachers. Then, Luke has started soccer and I wanted to post about his first practice and game. I'll try to do that next, if there is time.

Today, I'm home from work unexpectedly. Eli got sick at school and thankfully Grammy was able to pick him up and take him to her house while I scurried home from FW. He's asleep now, and has been for a while, and I have a ton of work I need to be doing but I can't seem to get busy. So, to make this day not a total loss, I'll post some stuff on here.

With the 10th anniversary of Sept. 11 a few days ago, I wanted to write for the boys my memories of that day. Of course I meant to write it on the 11th but like so many things around here, it's a few days late.

At the time I was teaching 3rd grade in McKinney. I remember the day very well. Somehow we got word of what had happened, I think it was Shannon's husband who had emailed her at work. So, during specials (at about 9:30), we turned on the TV in Jennifer's room. Jennifer, Shannon, Suzy and I stood in Jennifer's room staring at the TV (and some other random person from the district who was to meet with us that day). It was incredible. I thought right away that it was Osama bin Laden. A few days before that I had watched a program about terrorists and he was profiled. We watched as the towers fell and at the time I did not realize the magnitude of what was happening. I did not realize right away that there were people still inside. The realization was horrific. We soon had to pick up our students and sheltered them from the news for the rest of the day. We all felt the news and explanations would best come from parents. Nonetheless, it was hard to go the rest of the day unable to talk about what had happened. So, so terrible. That night when I started to have my daily devotion, I was shocked again. Here is the devotion for Sept 11, the one I read that night (From Faith to Faith, Kenneth and Gloria Copeland, 1992): Click on it to see the text better.

Powerful.

My other significant memory from that period of time was about a month later. I was scheduled to run the Marine Corp Marathon in Washington, DC in October. The route went around the Pentagon. There was some debate as to whether the race would still be held but it was decided to go ahead as planned. It was a cold day and as I stood at the starting line, the national anthem played. The sun was on my face and I was surrounded, it was very crowded. It was so cold but I could not feel it because of all the people standing so close together. It was an electric moment. I closed my eyes and it was so quiet. Very amazing and hard to describe really. We did run by the Pentagon, in the parking lot, and ended by the Iwo Jima Memorial. What a day.
And finally, I can't think of Sept 11 without thinking of the fact that it would be just 9 short months later when my brother would die. When people count years from 9/11 I find myself subtracting 1.

Oh my goodness, what a depressing post. I'll get the camera and put some pics of Luke's first soccer game on here to liven things up! So sorry!