Dear Isaiah,

You’re almost 21 months old and full of unpredictable moments.

TEET TEET is what you say when asked what noise a bird makes.

You are obsessed – OBSESSED, I tell you – with bikes. So much so, your father hid the one bike we do have in our basement. Taking it from the garage and hiding it so you wander in teh garage anymore and stand by it and having a loud crying episode when we ask you to go in the house for dinner.

This past week you said, Mama. Work. to the sitter, explaining you know where I am during the day. This revelation made me cry when I read it in the sitter’s note that day. You blow kisses to everyone and anyone.

One of the most touching moments that I’ll never forget happened Thursday night. I carefully laid you in your crib, gently laid the blanket over you and told you I loved you. For the first time it looked like you understood the words. You smiled and blew me a kiss.

With so much love coming out of you, it’s hard to explain what today, September 11, 2011, means.

The 10 year anniversary of one of the most tragic days of our lives. I remember I was living in Aberdeen, Washington. Just months out of college and living on the west coast, I was 3 hours behind and woke up to my roommate, Mike, yelling from the downstairs, “Everyone wake up. The Pentagon’s been attacked. We’re at war. Everyone wake up. We’re at war.”

We turn on the television and I watch my roommate Lauren, from New York, break down at the images of what we were seeing. We had no idea what was going on except something horrible had just spun out of control. I tried to call Gretchen, my best friend in Manhattan, and wondered where all my NYC relatives were…

It was a day you will only hear about. Like how I only heard about the JFK assassination. Like Pearl Harbor. Like the story ghosts that remain after death comes in sweeping violence.

Today your cousin, Zach, 6 years old asked if I had heard anything about two buildings being attacked by people who hated God. I paused and said, “Yes, I’ve heard about the buildings.” I looked at you, wandering aimlessly toward the kitchen table trying to sneak potato chips into your round little mouth, and wondered what kind of world you would grow up in. But no matter what, no matter what kind of tragedies you will face in your lifetime, remember a very simple, probably overly simple thought that gets me through every September:

No matter how wide or endless the stench of death might be, love always – always – endures.

Love,
Mama