Real Life as Story: Retelling the 9-11 Events to My Kids
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Credited to: WallyG, Flicker.com
When a colleague told me a hijacked airliner had rammed one of the twin towers, I didn’t believe it. And I hardly believed it as I watched another airliner turn the second tower into another inferno.
My kids, ages five and eight, have no knowledge of that elegaic day and the calamity that followed — bodies that fell like debris, the nuclear-winter implosion, the NY Firefighters who raised the American flag in solidarity and patriotism like the soliders in Iwo Jima.
As I’ve explained Patriot Day to my youngsters, I understand the great responsibility I have as a storyteller: My family’s legacy, America’s legacy, the future — these are at the mercy of how we tell the stories to the next generation.
Roy Peter Clark says it best: We are a storytelling species.
“As it was for Homer, so it is for those of us who live to tell and retell the stories of 9/11 to our children and grandchildren. We can now narrate parables of survival in the hope that our culture, political system and way of life will re-form and carry on.”
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