It's hard to explain...

Does anyone else get stumped by what to say to their children about tough topics? I usually consider myself a pretty open parent - we speak openly about things here (probably sometimes too openly). This week I've had a few that were interesting.

First was Chaz Bono. We like to watch DWTS and when they looked at the cast they wanted to know why he was famous. I told them because he was the child of some famous people - to which they said, "So what?" Then we had to go through the whole transgender thing, yada, yada.

Then, we were in Walmart the other day. I ALWAYS see very interesting and disturbing things at Walmart but this one was just sad. An older man with long gray hair with pink ribbons in it, wearing a pink dress, white tights with polka dots, carrying a stuffed teddy bear, a baby doll, and a baby bottle. He had his helper there with him.

Well, neither of these is anything compared to this last one. How to do explain the unexplainable to children? I am speaking of 9/11. I still don't understand it myself! One thing I am finding interesting and somewhat surprising is how emotional I feel about it as the anniversary approaches. Yesterday I was running around doing things around the house and turned the TV on - the kids had left it on the National Geographic Channel and there happened to be a 9/11 documentary on. I found myself stopping to listen and then finally just forgot the laundry and putting on the makeup and had to sit and watch the whole thing. It's so awful and horrid and almost unbelievable that it ever happened. On the one hand, I was thinking of how much worse it could have been. On the other hand I couldn't think of anything more horrible. I wondered how people could have that much hate in their hearts that they really had no problem doing this to innocent people. It was like reliving it all again when they showed footage of the second plane hitting - that was the moment where it went from an awful accident to that "Oh." moment...and then it just kept happening and happening, and felt like a nightmare. I can remember being so scared in those first few months, wondering what was next. I had two very young children and I was terrified about the world they had come into. I remember watching general conference a few weeks later and the news breaking in to say that military action had started in Iraq. In hindsight, that was a very scary time.

Ten years later, in some ways those fears are still there. Do I feel safer? Not really. I am certain terrorists will strike again - they only have to get it right once or twice and they can cause a lot of damage. Do I live in fear of public places? No, but I'm positive that many people do because of this. In some ways things are probably better right now than I thought they might be (i.e. I was certain that WWIII was upon us) and in some ways they are worse.

So, it's probably good to express our feelings about this. Thus, this blog post. What was your 9/11 story? Here's mine:

Lou was less than 2 months old. Sis was 2 years. Because I had just had a baby and it was only around 7:00 a.m. in Utah when this all started happening, I didn't hear about it for a few hours. I woke up, turned on the tv, and there was video of burning buildings and plane crashes and I had to call my grandma (who I knew would have been up for awhile and would know what was going on) and ask her what on earth was happening. I must admit that it was probably 3 days before I really tore myself away from the television.

I will be working 20 hours over this weekend and will not see a lot of the coverage. Which, is probably a good thing, because this is more emotional than I expected.

I don't know what else to say about it other than it's hard to understand and hard to explain. It makes Chaz Bono and old men who think they are little girls seem like a piece of cake.