My ray of hope, eleven years later.
As with every year around this date, I look at the pictures of the fire, smoke, and cloud-tickling buildings begin to crumble to the ground, but I couldn’t bring myself to post one of those here. Everyone seems to remember being frozen in time, in the horror of that moment when the planes hit. Confusion set in: it must have been an accident, but how?
Then terror as the realization that those planes were intentionally targeted towards innocents going about their daily work. Why? Who?
Sitting in front of my computer as a recruiter at CarMax Corporate Headquarters, all I could think as the emails started flying–albeit selfishly–was, please God let this baby survive. No matter what else is going to come of this insanity please let it live.
Experiencing pregnancy for the first time was exhilarating (lucky for me as I had very little sickness) and each passing day became a new adventure as I turned the pages of What to Expect marveling at this tiny little bean swimming around inside of me. As the hours passed ticking into days and life for us started to return to days without fear of more attacks, the bean became an orange, a cantaloupe, and then A GIANT WATERMELON.
The “it” became a “he” and he was born safe and sound–blessed as we were–on April 24, 2002. Seven months after our world became a little more cautious, a little less confident, eternally sad at the losses. My prayer was answered as the darkest fears of the families of the victims sat at dinner tables with an empty chair.
I’ll never understand how my miracle materialized in the shadows of unspeakable pain, but I’ll be forever grateful. And I’ll never forget.
