Remembering 9/11: My Son's Birthday

This month marks the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks that killed thousands at the Pentagon, World Trade Center, and in a field in Shanksville, Penn.

Check Patch every day this week for new 9/11 stories from Fairfax City council members, school officials, religious and business leaders. Share your 9/11 stories with Patch by emailing whitney@patch.com.

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That dreaded day happens to be my son's birthday.

I was at home baking cupcakes to bring to his kindergarten class when my husband called me to see what I was doing and to see if I had the TV on. I told him no I did not have the TV on because I was busy making the cupcakes for our son Zachary's class. He was then very insistent that I turn on the television. So I reluctantly did and saw the second plane hit the  tower. I was stunned. My husband was very reassuring that he would be home shortly and to head to the school with those cupcakes.

It just blew my mind to see something as tragic and horrific as that on live television, needless to say, I was shaken. Being a Mom I still wanted to get those cupcakes to my son's class, he was expecting them.

When I got there it was total chaos in the entire school. Some of the teachers' husbands/wives worked at the Pentagon and they could not reach them, they were visibly very upset. I got to my son's class and his teacher, who was nine months pregnant, was not feeling very well. Her husband was one of the ones that worked at the Pentagon.

I wanted to act as if nothing was wrong for the kids' sake and asked everyone to sing Happy Birthday. All the adults sang half crying. Kids ate the cupcakes and we all continued to quietly cry.

My first thought was to get home to be reunited with my husband and daughter. Not so fast, the principal was not letting any students leave the building at that point. She said I could leave, but my son couldn't, fat chance. I told her very calmly and matter-of-factly that I was taking him with me right then and there was nothing that was going to stop me from doing so. We left and got home in about 10 minutes to find my husband and daughter already there waiting for us.

We were trying to keep my son away from the TV, but at the same time we wanted to be able to follow the events unfolding before us. We were successful for that evening but the next day he made his way into the room without us knowing and all we heard from behind us was, "Cool!!!" We turned around and in horror we saw that Zach had seen one of the planes hit the tower. We watch a lot of those shows on Discovery about how they strategically place dynamite to implode a building. Knowing that is what he must have thought my husband and I looked at him then each other for a split second and both said at the same exact time, "Yeah, that is cool Zach," letting him think for the moment that that's all it was. We were able to play along with that for a couple days until it became clear to him that it was not "cool"...this was real and we had some explaining to do.

We broke it to him as gently as possible on a level that he could understand and be able to handle in his little heart and mind. To this day, not one of Zach's birthdays goes by without my husband and I saying to each other with heavy hearts, "Cool, huh?"

Thank you for letting me share our story with you.

Sharyn Stanley