It's been a year, and I didn't write about it then, because I felt everything that needed to be said was already said better by other people.

It still doesn't seem real. It feels like a nightmare. Every really bad nightmare I've ever had I can still recall in perfect detail, and I remember September 11, 2001 with such clarity that it might as well be a nightmare, but it's not. I recall knowing Macy's would be closed, which would mean I'd be alone, left to watch the news by myself all day, unless I kept Katie home from school, which is precisely what I did. We played together all day; we read books and sang songs, and it was magical. Finally, though, she needed a nap and kind of curled up and got quiet and fell asleep. I decided I'd tune into the news for a few minutes, just to make sure nothing else had happened, and what I saw made my heart hurt so bad that it felt like if someone touched my torso, I would bruise. I needed a hug, but it literally hurt when Ryan came home that night and gave me one.

Although I didn't know it then, I was pregnant. Zachary was conceived a few days before. If I hadn't conceived that month, I'm not sure it would have ever happened. I think I would have not wanted to bring another child into the world, such as it was and still is, to a degree. Maybe we would have tried sometime next year, but for sure, not then.

Is it sick to be cynical about the media coverage of today? Losing one's spouse is the most horrible thing imaginable, especially when there are kids, but it feels to me like some of the widows are making a career of going on talk shows, appropriately damp-eyed and ashen-faced, sharing their grief with an audience all too willing to drink it up. Grief is a private thing. Which is another reason why I didn't write last year.

Katie still really doesn't have a good idea of what happened. Ryan told her that the bad people broke the buildings. She doesn't know why, and she doesn't know that so many people went the way of her goldfish, Dorothy. How can we tell her 20 men hated us so much they would give their lives to take away ours?

I realize that I throw the word "hate" around too loosely. "I hate circus peanuts". "I hate Britney Spears". Now, I know I only hate the people who did this. That, and people who hate. Those men hated us, and while certain facets of our culture and way of life make me want to scream, I can't understand why. Why they thought it was reasonable to kill 3,000 people who had no quarrel with them. The fact that they could so callously destroy so may lives without a thought or consideration makes me hate them. Truly. In the most honest sense of the word.

And I hate the right-wing reactionary bullshit I'm hearing. National I.D. cards? Profiling? No way. Not in my country. I hope I die before I see that happen.

I hope we learn something. I hope we have enough sense to leave Iraq alone. Because the feeling I had that morning is a feeling I hope I never feel again.

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