We woke up that morning as usual, with just enough time to get dressed, grab breakfast, and get out the door to meet the school bus promptly at 7:45 am. J1 was in the second grade, while J2 had just started kindergarten, both at the same school.
As the time drew closer to get on the bus, a sense of undeniable dread began to fill me. It got worse and worse as we went along. The school bus arrived and as I went to kiss the two J's goodbye, a sense of doom struck me so hard I told the driver to go on without them.
By now, it was 8:00 am, and the three of us went home, I called in sick to work, and then we all went to bed. We never even turned the TV on. This all was very strange behavior for us, for two reasons.
First, it was still very early in the school year, and it was way too soon to keep the J's home for any reason. J2 was just getting comfortable being a big boy and I knew keeping his routine was crucial. J1 had finally gotten used to going to bed early after a summer of no sleep boundaries. It was just so very odd that I would do this, and I even knew it at the time.
Second, we almost always turned on the TV when we get home, like it was lighting our home fire. For the J's to miss an opportunity to watch cartoon's was unheard of. They just followed me upstairs, got in my bed, and we all fell into a deep,deep sleep.
Somewhere around noonish, we were still sleeping. The phone had started ringing a few hours before, and I begrudgingly answered it, finally. It was Gail.
"Do you have your TV on?" she asked.
"Nope, we stayed home and are just now waking up"
"You should turn on the TV, the World Trade Center just blew up" she said.
On September 11, 2001, I was safe and sound with my babies, up in the bed. So there you have it.
