Another Day of Infamy

Our school did today something we do very well, acknowledge national events. I'm sure many schools did a remembrance for September 11, but we also do them for Veteran's and Memorial Day, too. We couldn't do an outdoor get together because it was rainy. We usually gather around the circle outside of the school. We raise and lower the flag to half staff, which is actually a flag that has the names of all those who were killed. It's on a very vary visable wall all year, except it flies outside the school for the day. There's usually the pledge of allegiance, Claudia our ELL and classically trained singer sings "God Bless America" or one of the other athems, poems, and finally, Taps. Didn't do all of that today since we were inside, but it was moving, the whole school crowded in the auditorium, the aisles, in the doorways, and Taps was especially moving, made me tear up. I shared with one of my classes a button I made the night before the first anniversary, to remember a friend's cousin's husband who died that day. I told them I wear the button with his name on it every year all day, then put it carefully away. Hard to believe that it's eight years down the road. Still very much a part of what we are as a country now, not very far from our collective minds. Maybe that's more a thing here in the New York area than other parts of the country, though. I can still smell the smoke from that Sunday afterwards, after it blew north. It was the smell of wood, undectable smells and fuel. So many of our kids in school were'nt even born yet, and even our fifth graders might have only been three or so. But, we adults remember that terrible day, still so horrible after all these years, and we won't ever forget, or be the same, not should we.