My daughter was born.
All the kids born on that date will be forever tagged as being the people who were born on 9-11.
My daughter, and her peers, have grown up with this shadow of the Twin Towers hanging over their every move.
Seems to me that it has always been in the backs of theri minds That they have always had the smell of pulverized concrete filling their souls, and the hot stench of gasoline fumes form the downed airplanes heavy in their hair, on their skin, as the crust at the corners of their eyes, their mouths, their nostrils.
Or maybe not.
Who knows.
Maybe they never really gave a shit.
Perhaps when they were at their parties in high school they never really thought about their origins.
Perhaps it was just the emotional weight of their parents that was the shroud under which they lived.
Perhaps they never realized that they were the hope that we lost on that day, theat they were the reality in the midst of that horror.
I remember that day. I remember holding that tiny body, and after my eyes being glued to the televisions all morning long, watching the world fall apart around us, then, late afternoon, the world suddenly came back together, the pieces came back together, all in this little lovely warm brand new human.
So Happy Birthday, my daughter.
We love you.
You are so much more than this day of your birth. You stand taller than those towers, braver than that field in Pennsylvania, and stronger than the Pentagon.
If you were to read this, I know you would roll your eyes.
So roll them now.
Love, your dad.
[NOTE: this letter will be saved in the Annals of Insomniac Jack]
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