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A Letter to My Children
By Michelle Duncan

September 12, 2001

To My Boys...

Your world changed yesterday and you don't even know it. The world that you were born into became the world you will grow up in and it was a tragic day.

It started like any other for me. I got up, got ready for work, checked on you both sleeping in your rooms, covered you up, kissed you goodbye and went to work. Only after arriving did I find out about the hysteria happening on the east coast. I watched in our command center, in horror, the replay of the second plane hitting the World Trade Center. Unable to believe my eyes, the images got worse as news reports came in of the Pentagon and then the crumbling of the two World Trade Center Towers -- 110 stories each, reduced to 10 feet of ash.

While the reports aren't in on the amount dead, they are saying probably close to 10,000 people lost their lives. I watched you both playing yesterday and worried about the children whose parents didn't come home last night. I wished more than anything I could talk to my Dad -- your Pops could always help me make sense of the senseless -- but that only made me think of the people who lost their Daddies yesterday and I know, too well, that pain and I wish it on no one. I was thankful my Mom was with us, but yet, I worried about those children whose moms weren't.

You will grow up in an untrusting world and that is by far the saddest for me. As you grow I will tell you the story of how your Aunt Candy and I flew on a plane to North Carolina when I was around 12 and she was around 7, alone. You won't be able to understand because in this new world, that is something you will never do.

I watch you and I wonder how I will be able to find the right words to explain to you why this happened when you ask. How do you explain the unexplainable? How do you tell your child that there are people out there who believe that it's acceptable to take innocent lives in the name of a "cause?"

I left work yesterday, unable to concentrate, and stopped by the store. When I stepped out of the car I saw the American flag on the building flying at half mast and I began to cry. This morning people in our neighborhood had hung up their flags in support and there were flags hung on pedestrian overpasses on the freeway ... and those made me cry.

There are things in life I've come to accept that I'll never understand. This is on that list. It was senseless and stupid -- not to mention unfounded. The loss of life is staggering. I am sad for us as a nation, as a family, as human beings ... and I wonder what happens next. As a mom, I want nothing more than to keep you safe and happy. Moms worldwide are crying today because we couldn't shield the children of America from this travesty.

I hope that I can stress to you that in times of need, we pull together like no other. Yesterday the American Red Cross had lines of people at every location waiting to donate blood. Volunteer search and rescue teams were in route to New York. Firefighters and police worked around the clock, ignoring their own exhaustion. Men and women on the street simply started working wherever help was needed, and still we all wondered how we could do more.

The world, my loves, is made simply of good and evil. As you grow, I hope your Dad and I teach you to see the good in all things, because if you can't see it, then evil has won. Yesterday will be a day we will never forget. As you look back on the news from that horrible day and see in gleaming color, the darkest day in our national history, please remember those innocent people who lost their lives and way the human spirit was able to rise from tragedy.

I love you,
Mom

For more information on the tragedy: