story6393.xml

story6393.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2002-09-12

The hardest part of September 11, 2001 for me was trying to explain to my 5 year old son what had happened. He did not understand why people would willingly fly airplanes into buildings. The only thing I could think to say to him was that the terrorists hated our country so bad, that it did not matter to them if they died in the process of killing Americans.I wanted to be as honest with him as possible, but at the same time I did not want to petrify him too bad.I saw an interview with Lisa Beamer not long after the attacks where she said how she told her sons that their father was killed in an airplane crash.She told them that many airplanes fly everyday, and that a crash is a very uncommen thing to occur.I explained this to my son as well, just so if we would have to fly on a plane in the future, he would not be to scared. The courage of Lisa Beamer and the thousands of victim's family members like her, gave me more strength in helping my son cope with the attacks.