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I was six years old when the then most dramatic, life altering event happened, that changed the way Americans felt about their country.

I was in first grade in 1963, and we lived close enough to the grade school I attended to walk home every day for lunch.  The moment I came through the back door, I knew something was different.  My mother was not standing in the kitchen.  I walked through the kitchen, the dining room and into the living room.  I just stared at my mother who was seated on a large green vinyl hassock directly in front of the television.

She really didn't even notice me standing there.  My mother, who took great pains to protect me from undesirable things, was sobbing as she stared, seemingly transfixed by what she saw on the television screen.

I remember thinking, "My grandparents must have died……maybe my Daddy died."  I finally asked, "Mommy, what's the matter?"  I will never forget the next few minutes.  It was in that frozen slice of time, I learned about good vs. bad.  I realized not everyone thought or acted the same way I did, nor responded to what I preceived as good in the same way.

My mother finally turned and looked at me.  I saw such sadness in her eyes, but I remember seeing something else.  FEAR.  She tried to compose herself and then in a watery voice that seemed to come from her tears, she said, "Honey, someone has shot the President."

"Mr. Kennedy?", I replied.

"Yes"

"Why would someone do that?", I asked.

And then came the reply that would help me form my value system for the rest of my life.

"Well honey, there are some bad people in the world.  People who don't like it when others do things they wished they had done...bad people who only want to make other people feel as bad as they do."

"Well, why did they shoot the President?", I inquired.

"I don't know", was her very honest reply…….then the tone on the television changed and her attention was immediately drawn away from me and to the screen.

"Mommy, is the President okay?", I innocently asked, as only a trusting child, unacquainted with death and destruction, can do.

My mother could only stare at me.  In retrospect, I now know she was struggling with whether to let me really know such evil, sinister things could occur in this land of the free.  I could almost see her weigh in the balance the effect my hearing the truth from her lips, or from someone at school later on.  Family values won, but still my mother could not speak.

I began to think the unutterable.  I used a word that I had never before in my young, sheltered, very American life had uttered.

"Mommy, is the President dead?", I said in a very small voice.  Hearing my own voice say that word scared me.

My mother could only nod, then held out her arms as I rushed into them for comfort.  The comfort only a mothers touch, albeit drenched in tears, could hold.  I remember thinking I never wanted to leave the circle of those arms.  The world was such a scarey, evil place.  And we lived in America, the greatest country on earth.

Caleb was six years old on September 11, 2001.  We had just finished our breakfast, when the phone rang.  Daddy was on the other end, calling from his cell phone from somewhere in the east while performing his job as truck driver.

My husband's voice sounded excited, even scared a little.  "Honey, a plane just hit one of the Twin Towers in New York City".

"Oh, it did not, you're lying", was my response, knowing how he liked to joke when he called me that early in the morning, although I thought the subject matter was a little raw, and questioned how much sleep he had gotten the night before, driving his semi through the night, to make it to his early morning delivery in New Jersey, and a pick up just outside of Manhattan after that.

"No, really, honey, turn on the radio.", he anxiously replied.  "They're saying it's some kind of a  terrorist attack."

As he was saying those words, I was stepping to our stereo system, clicking it on to the local" talk-only" radio program I enjoyed checking with throughout the day for weather and traffic.

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