Making History

9/11 still makes me weepy and a bit off. And it's a dreary day. Rain makes me weepy and a bit off too. I don't mind though. Some days are good for being weepy and getting the emotions out.

I often sing that little crying song to Miles and Asher,

"It's alright to cry.
Crying gets the sad out of you.
It's alright to cry.
It might make you feel better."

Sometimes I sing it to myself too. But in my head rather than out loud. It feels sort of crazy to cry, rock back and forth, and sing.

So yeah, I'm a bit off today. I've never been good at wrapping my mind around time. When someone said this morning that it has been seven years since the terrorist attack on NYC, I just felt a bit stumped. SEVEN? How is that possible. I'm sure the families of the people who died on planes and in the towers feel as though it happened yesterday. Even though life's pace picked up and raced right along without waiting for them to catch up.

I want to be able to tell my boys about that day seven years ago when they're old enough to understand. I remember it vividly. But I'm sure a lot of the gravity of it all has faded without me noticing. I wonder if they'll be interested. I know that I never took history all that seriously as a kid. I didn't fully care to understand Vietnam or Pearl Harbor, World Wars or the Depression. As most kids go, I was pretty much only focused on my current world and the atrocities therein. You know, like not being able to get the safety pins lined up correctly at the bottom of my cinched jeans and making sure my bangs were high enough.

So how do we help our children understand that history matters? That lives have been effected and it brings us to where we are today. That the good and the bad that we are today can be chalked up to Faithful History. We couldn't escape it if we tried. It happens, it changes us, and then the clock moves forward like a hunter, reaching out to grab more history.

Maybe teaching our children about past history is all about how we deal with what is happening in the present. Maybe if we live by example, pointing out what's going on in the world and moving to action, the desire to see outside of themselves will be contagious.

"Miles, something really hard is happening in Haiti. Right now. Today. We can't see Haiti, because it's really far away. And maybe you haven't heard about it because not many people are talking about it. But people are having a hard time because of a storm. Let's go to our mailbox and send money to Haiti. They need it for food, clean water, clothes and a place to stay. Let's go now so we don't forget."

I want my boys to know that history is in the making whenever they act. It is in the way they treat others in the big world around them. It's in the goals and dreams they aspire to, and the way they treat themselves. Maybe if we praise them for the ways they positively effect their world, it will bring them to a curiosity of how others have done the same in years past. History is people surviving, thriving, failing and trying again, shaping, changing, moving into action. Making history.

(the "send money to Haiti" link above will bring you to a really great blog you may not have discovered. There's a lot of information there on the devastation in Haiti and ways to help.)