Tuesday, September 14, 2010

Happy Birthday, Stinker!

Nine years old.  Wow.  I know I say this all the time, but I can't believe how fast the time has flown.

Saturday night we were sitting at Nonni's watching a special about the 9/11 attacks on the History channel.  It brought so many memories back.  September 11, 2001 was your due date.  Grammie was flying in that day, and we were just waking up when the telephone rang at 6:00 a.m.  It was your aunt Emily telling us to turn on the TV because there was something wrong in New York City.  I turned on the news, and there it was.  The north tower of the World Trade Center had a gaping hole in it and was burning.  An airplane had hit it.  Was it a freak accident?  A small plane that the pilot had somehow lost control of?

Then, still confused and watching the building on the TV screen, we see the second plane.  It looks like any other commercial airplane, only it is circling around and slams into the other tower. 

It felt so surreal, like we were in a movie, or we were watching a movie.

Then a call from Grammie at the Kansas City airport; she was just boarding her flight to California when they shut down all of the flights.  She wasn't going to be leaving.  She ended up getting the first available flight as soon as planes were able to fly again a few days later.

The next few days were full of watching and waiting, tears for the fallen and the lost, and hunkering down with family, and waiting for you to arrive.

Then in the middle of all of that chaos and sorrow, there you were.  Like a little light shining in the darkness.

Grammie arrived just minutes after you were born.  We weren't going to let those damn terrorists stop us from living life to the fullest.

So that day will forever be tangled up with the day you were born, but you were my lifeline toggling me to the present and the beautiful miracle of life.  Happy birthday.  I love you!

2 comments:

Tara said...

aw!!! how sweet! :) Happy birthday Joe!

Annette Lyon said...

Beautiful tribute to a sweet boy. To think the world up and changed just days before his birth. Wow.

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