My 9/11 boy

Anybody that knows me knows I am not a sentimentalist but I am sentimental about 9/11 for reasons that are quite frankly somewhat related and somewhat unrelated to the events that occurred in New York, Washington DC and Pennsylvania that horrible day.
                                                                          
Ten years ago, I was in a Cleveland courthouse participating in a civil trial. Around 11:00 am, a court official came into the courtroom and advised that the building was being evacuated due to an attack which destroyed the towers of the World Trade Center in New York City. We had no idea that this drama had been unfolding for the last couple of hours. The presiding judge said "Oh, come on!" at which time the court official assured him it was true and that the building was being evacuated and was going to be shortly searched with bomb-sniffing dogs. Obviously, we were stunned.

We exited the building through the front entrance and the first thing I noticed was traffic at a standstill in Downtown Cleveland and I saw a law enforcement official standing at the entrance prominently holding a machine gun. I then saw another law enforcement official walking down the middle of the street through stopped traffic and also holding a machine gun. I was quite disoriented by this and my initial thought was that Cleveland was also experiencing an attack but I then quickly found out that this was not true and that this was probably going on in every big city in America.

I then walked a few blocks to my hotel and found that it had also been evacuated and that we would not have access to it until law enforcement was able to go through it with dogs. The dogs did not arrive until approximately 4:00 pm in the afternoon so I spent the day on the sidewalk outside the hotel talking with fellow guests trying to piece together just what had happened. We were probably the most ill-informed people in the country because as most people in the country had seen the Twin Towers video numerous times by then, nobody standing on the sidewalk had yet seen it and we wouldn't see it until around 5:00 pm.

When the Cleveland Renaissance Hotel was reopened and I got to my room, I turned on the television to see for myself just what had happened. As I was watching the footage of the attack, the phone rang. It was my wife, Margaret who was calling. I asked her about her and my 3 year old son Alex's reaction to the day's events and she strangely didn't want to talk about it much. I was confused. Then why was she calling?

Margaret then said "I have something to tell you" and proceeded to tell me that she had just found that she was pregnant with twins. On 9/11. And I was learning about it while watching a video of the tragedy. I wish I could say that I was immediately filled with joy with this news but frankly I was experiencing some serious "information overload" with the 9/11 events and then this news just as I was watching the attack video for the first time. I did not know Margaret had an appointment with the doctor. I had not been thinking about having another baby let alone twins. But we were. Starting then. On 9/11.

As the country was in a state of shock, I did not feel it was appropriate for me to share this (what I quickly decided) was good news with my colleagues or frankly anybody around me. As I continued to watch the coverage of 9/11, I simply had a hard time concentrating or processing any of this information. I decided to call my parents to advise them of the good news and accepted their congratulations and that was the extent of my "baby talk" for the day. The rest of the day I wrestled with competing thoughts of the horror and devastation of the country's 9/11 and my similar but also different 9/11 day.

The hotel had been very crowded with a few large conventions that I was not part of and those ended immediately due to the events of 9/11 and everybody went home. The hotel was then very close to being deserted.  Our trial continued so I could not go home for the balance of the week. I was essentially alone in this rather large 15 floor hotel seeing the same old few people in the building who like me were not able to leave. I don't think I ever felt so alone. With my thoughts. Thoughts about our country. Our country's future. Thoughts about my future. My family's future. On 9/11.

Well, unfortunately one of the twins did not make it. But one did!

His name is Louis! Louis is now approximately 6 months short of 10 years old. Louis is frequently described as "something else". He is a very active healthy, happy kid who loves playing organized baseball and hockey. Some people call him a "character". An understatement actually. He's a popular kid. Likes to laugh. Likes to play. Cares about others. Is sensitive. Has a conscience. I do know that I can't imagine life without Louis, my 9/11 boy.

Louis knows his personal connection to 9/11 but I don't think he thinks of it often. His brother Alex talks about it more than anybody. He does ask me and his mother from time "Why did they do it?" and we have given him 4 or 5 variations of an answer which are inadequate because he keeps asking the same question.
 
As he gets older, he will be able to sort out his thoughts on 9/11 and "why they did that?" and his personal connection to 9/11 if he even retains that information tidbit or sees the need to. However he does it is fine with me.

All I know is that in the middle of our national tragedy, this boy (or the thought of him) came into my life.  He is my "9/11 boy" who  every year symbolizes my conflicting thoughts and emotions on this day. I love him with all my heart and all my soul. 9/11? Frankly, when I think of it, I wish we could remove that day from the calendar. I literally think that when I am scheduling things and I see that day on the calendar. My heart sinks. But then I think of a little boy. And his older brother who remembers the story. And their mother.    

On behalf of our family, I extend our heartfelt sympathy, prayers and respect to all families who lost a loved one on 9/11. 

We will never forget.

I certainly can't.