This year my thoughts are with Jeremy Glick's family. Seven years ago I watch an interview with Jeremy Glick's widow. She talked about her husband's heroism on United Flight 93 and mentioned their newborn baby Emerson. I was the third month of my marriage. Her mention of Emerson hit a chord with me.
In some type of interior way, I knew that it would be a major tragety if Jon died before we had any children. I remember thinking "I want to have a baby with Jon? Right now?" I was 26, fresh out of seven years of straight schooling with a newly minted attorney license. When I married Jon in June, I hadn't thought babies were on the horizon until at least age 30.
But that interview, and that harrowing interior search for God in the months that followed 9/11, led me to Motherhood. Hannah might have been conceived in June 2002, yet she is a true 9/11 baby.
I say a prayer for Jeremy Glick and his family every time I marvel at the still spectaclar view of our Nation's Capital Dome. I heard that the terrorist had planned for the plane to go right into that marvel of architexture which held a Union together during the Civil War. I'm so thankful that on that awful day, we don't also have the memory of the symbol of our democracy in smoldering flames.
Thank you to the brave men of Flight 93 and all the brave firefighters, police and port authority members who exhibited saintly acts of charity on 9/11. (If you haven't yet seen "The Twin Towers" with Nicholas Cage and a beautiful image of Our Blessed Mother, that is a must see).
Today is also the birthday of a new friend of mine in Australia. Her mom was embarrassed to tell me the date of her scheduled C-section was 9/11. I told her that was beautiful. I'm grateful on this day of mourning, I've got such a special reason to rejoice. Welcome to the world Baby Balint-Smith.
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Notes: Last week, I remembered this intense feeling I had during the Glick interview. "I wonder why I could hear the voice of God so clearly." The decision to be open to life was such a radical change for me. I used to think that it was my intense love for my husband that brought me over my deep (and unfounded) fears of motherhood. "I didn't want to have a baby. I just wanted Jon's baby." That's how I explained it to myself and confounded friends at time. Now I see it as a direct result of sacramental grace. When I watched that TV interview- I was three months into a sacramental marriage. Grace corrects a faulty intellect. Yet another important sign of needed the grace of a "marriage" opposed to the cohabitiation which is so widely celebrated in our culture.)
