On September 11th, 2001 at 8:46am, I had already been awake and up for hours with my 1-year old son.   We’d had breakfast, read a stack of board books, sent CMB off to work,  played with some toys and started on a batch of mango-coconut muffins for a playdate we had planned for later that morning- all before that first plane hit the North Tower of the World Trade Center.  The TV remained off at 9:03 am when the second plane hit the South Tower,  as we scraped batter out of a mixing bowl and plopped it both in to the prepared muffin cups and on to the kitchen floor.  I’m sure I was irritated at the prospect of another mess to clean up while I distractedly slid the pan in to the oven, quickly wiping my hands as I ran to answer the phone.

My father calling from nearby Massachusetts was the one to break the news to me and to inadvertently burst my bubble of self-absorption.  I clicked on the television to see first-hand what he had described, still unsure of whether or not this was an intentional.  I sat in confusion, doubtful that two planes crashing in to a huge building under 200 miles away from the town in Rhode Island where we lived, could be anything other than an accident.  Wait.  Two planes crashing in to the same building minutes apart?  Uh…  Somewhere in between seeing those first  images and building a couple of block towers with my son, it was determined that this was in fact a terrorist attack.   

The television remained on for the next few hours, murmuring the latest horrifying developments.  I watched and listened in between phone calls, still not fully comprehending what had happened.  The play date was canceled.  I put the baby down for a nap.  CMB came home from work.  More phone calls.  More news reports.  So much destruction.  So many lives lost.  So many mothers who would never again hear their baby wake crying from a deep sleep, or trip over piles of toys strewn about every room in the house, or clean a perfect muffin batter handprint from the glass door, or pick sticky and crumbling Cheerios from in between the couch cushions, or look in exhaustion with disbelief at the little person gesturing “up” for the millionth time that day, or feel the warm flush of love as he buries his face in your neck.

It’s too bad that for most people, myself included, it often takes events as catastrophic as 9/11 or the Boston Marathon bombings to put our own trivial concerns in to perspective.  The thousands of people who died tragically and unexpectedly 13 years ago, will never again have the chance to experience either monotony or excitement.  As I anticipate my half-marathon this weekend and wonder whether I ‘m “ready” my thought process seems so preposterous,  I should have trained more so I could be faster and then (maybe) I would be able to PR.  Reflections of this type are not uncommon (for me) before a race and I’m certain I could have trained differently/better.  But what I’m choosing to remember is that the time to do what we love (no matter if we’re completely prepared) is right now, not on some magical future date which might never come.  Never forget.     

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