Half-Truths about Half-Mast

"Mommy, why are the flags at half-mast today?" Sis notices everything. And I'd noticed too. And had looked it up at home. Today is National Day of Service and Remembrance for Victims and Survivors of Terrorism, on the 15th anniversary of the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Building in Oklahoma City. I remember watching the video footage live in the special ed department of the school where I was working as an aide. For the first few hours, remembering the first attack on the World Trade Center, we thought it was foreign terrorists; only later did the truth--better? worse?--come out.

And help me, I couldn't explain terrorism to the kids this morning. Not Oklahoma City. Not the WTC in 1993. Not September 11, 2001. Slavery and the Civil War, though there are reverberations today (and even links to domestic terrorism and the Tea Party), is still mostly a thing of the past--Gettysburg happened safely in the past. September 11 didn't. Nor did Oklahoma City, the white chairs of the memorial of which are clearly visible in my mind.

"Today's Remembrance Day."

"For what?"

"To remember people who have gone before us."

Bud chimed in, "I bet it's for people who died. Like the miners."

"Or like people in the earthquake in Chile."

Maybe I tell them too much as it is. And so, today, I didn't tell them. Later. When they're older. Though, sadly, it is perhaps too much to hope that terrorism will ever be as past as Gettysburg.