yesterday i picked up lindsay, (who is 10 years old now) as i do every
afternoon on my way home from work, and i asked her if she had heard about
the events of the day. "what happened?" she asked, which was oddly
non-responsive, in its way. had she heard, and wanted MY version, or had she
not heard, and was simply being inquisitive? anyway, i told her. my wife
has several family members in manhattan, so lindsay has been there many
times. she was first concerned that the buildings involved were not the
one's her cousins lived in. "no, susan and annie live uptown and that's far
away from where the buildings were," i told her. she asked me some
additional questions. "you mean they were ON the plane when they crashed it
into the buildings?" she asked, incredulous. i nodded. "why would anyone
DO that?" i told her i didn't really know for sure, but that they were
probably very angry with the america, and wanted to hurt us in the worst way
they could. "well," she said, reactionary to the core, "we should take a
plane and fly it into one of THEIR buildings!" "but that would make us as
bad as they are, don't you think?" i asked. if she agreed, she wasn't
willing to say out loud. "well what ARE we gonna do?" she wanted to know,
and i told her i wasn't sure. "first we have to find out for sure who did
it." "if we catch them, will they go to jail?" "oh, i hope so," i said. i
told her it was a very sad day, and it was important for her to pay attention
and try and understand. we talked a little more, then we were home and she
asked if she could go outside to play. off she went...
that night she was argumentative and bickery, (standard operating procedure
for my little angel) with complaints about the dinner menu and all her
favorite television shows being preempted. she went to bed at 9:30, with
more than the usual objections.
at about 10 or 11 i was at the computer, reading list mail as a matter of
fact, when she suddenly screamed. to my memory, she has never had a
nightmare, or wakened screaming in her life. i ran in to her room and the
first thing out of her mouth was "daddy, will they come here?"
all day long i had been terribly upset at the autrocity against new york, a
city for which i have a passionate love. it was inconceivable to me that
those towers were gone, let alone the 10's of thousands of lives they housed.
i was shocked and sickened and felt isolated in my office, unable to see
with my own eyes the things i had been hearing about all day. i needed to see
the buildings collapse in order to really believe it had happened. so, like
most americans, i sat with my hand over my mouth for most of the evening,
watching those video clips over and over, from every possible angle. even
so, it seemed impossible to take in.
but it wasn't until i saw my precious lindsay, my bright star in this dark
age, wrested from a 10 year old's sleep, screaming in terror, that i finally
connected with the rage.
will they come here? what does one say?
earlier this summer lindsay finally asked me the 10 million dollar question
about her mother, who, as many of you know, is very sick. after two years of
illness, she finally asked me what she must have been dreading all this time
and i could never bring myself to specifically volunteer. she asked me if
her mother was dying. and although it broke my heart yet again, i told her
the truth. and she cried and i held her and i, reflexively, told her that i
would always take care of her. always.
and last night, i held her again and again, reflexively, told her that no,
they would not come here, not to swampscott, that it was ok, that she didn;t
need to worry, that it would never happen here. i stroked her hair and sat
with her until she fell back to sleep.
just pretty lies. i thought of joan didion's famous line: "we tell
ourselves stories, in order to live."
peace and love, ric
