Simple Moments

I experienced a small but sweet moment with Roland today. We were visiting my grandparents to see my parents who were in town and suddenly my sister is holding a ladder and my Dad is climbing a tree in the front yard. None of this is unusual growing up a Jones, but as I watched my 60-year-old father scale higher and higher I wondered when he would be more like my grandfather, supervising from the front porch? At 80 will he stop scaling trees? Probably not. My Dad likes to stay busy.

So as my Dad sawed down broken limbs and we coached from below Roland stepped up to help. If only he knew how willing my Dad is about handing out chores. (You have no idea. Really.) And Roland proudly hauled limb after limb to the pile on the curb. And then started picking up sticks, and Aria followed right along. Next thing I notice Dad is teaching Roland to rake. (Sucker.) But seeing all this stung a bit, like a small bite was being taken out of my heart to see him growing up so fast.

And while I was noticing all of this, I watched another plane come in to land at BNA. I remembered the moment in Texas when I first heard planes again in the sky after all of our air traffic had been halted. This reminded me that on this day 10 years ago I was in Clearwater Beach, Florida. I was getting ready to go for a run, entered the hotel lobby from the elevator and saw a hundred people frozen, speechless, crowded around a small TV. I remember waking up my group, trying to communicate in some semblance of intelligence to sleepy roommates what I wasn't sure was happening. After we watched the second plane hit, and the towers collapse, I went for that long run.

It seems strange that everyone asks people to recount where-were-you-moments, because you assume everyone will remember, but I've already forgotten bits and pieces. They were reminded to me when I met up with my GM group this past August. I completely blanked on the fundraising effort we organized. The merchandise I designed in Word on a laptop from the van to raise money for supplies. How Clint, our hero, packed an entire semi-truck full of food, gloves, water, equipment and donations and drove it himself straight to Ground Zero. We were there together as a team two weeks later.

The tragedies of September 11th took incalculable bites out of the hearts of millions. And that's an understatement. I guess how we honor that pain is by our little where-were-you recounts, to prove the loss is not forgotten. I'll try to always add a layer beyond that, to focus on still-being-here. I'm reminded how lucky I am, to be watching my 60-year-old Dad scale a tree, while I praise my 4-year-old son for helping out.

Roland told me tonight that I am a good mom, because I fix him good food and other stuff. (Verbatim) He also told me that he wanted to hug my heart. I told him he and Aria were my heart, and I love his hugs. He ended the quick back and forth with, "Well, we love hugging you."

So my where-we-you moment of September 11, 2011 will be: hugging my heart.