Today I picked up my 8 yr old great-nephew from his school which is close to Ground Zero, to take him to soccer practice. Since it rained all day in New York City, soccer practice was cancelled. We made our way to my apartment and our conversation was a bit about his day at school and a lot about 9/11. He wanted to watch “something” about 9/11 on TV, so we surfed the channels and found great programming on the history channel. I realized that he was only eight months when 9/11 happened and did not fully understand the details.
For the first time he realized the planes were regular passenger planes with ordinary people like him, he thought they were kamikaze pilots flying those planes (he had recently done a project on World War 11). He then wondered why people would intentionally fly planes into the W.T.C buildings. My response was measured but honest. He got a bit sad, looked me directly in the eyes and asked; did any children die?
I quickly responded no, but there was a little voice in my head questioning the response. At that moment, at that time, the pain on his face did not allow me to share my doubt about the answer. Later that evening my research confirmed that in fact seven children had lost their lives traveling on those planes on that day. Someday I will tell him the truth about those children, but not today.
