Ten years later

I don’t watch television or listen to the radio, so I didn’t  watch or listen to any of the media coverage of the tenth anniversary of 9/11. I spent a lazy morning with my husband: we both decided we deserved to sleep late. Then he went off to church while I settled into the comfy chair with my laptop to do some writing. In the afternoon, I mowed the backyard, read a book, and wrote some emails. In the evening, I went to a play with my youngest son, With-a-Why. When we returned, I read over a paper that Shaggy Hair Boy was writing for his history of music class. I called Boy in Black on the phone to hear that his club Ultimate team had won at sectionals. Then my husband and I settled down to watch an old episode of the Big Bang Theory on his laptop before bedtime.

It was an ordinary Sunday. But I found myself thinking about my students from Big City Like No Other, both the students who were in my classes ten years ago and my present students who were only kids when the terrorist attack happened. Many of the students that I wrote about in this post are on facebook, and before I went to bed, I checked on them, to read what they were thinking and doing on this anniversary. It was a relief to read so many ordinary statuses, to see them playing with their young children or doing household chores, going on with their lives.