Day 254 - September 11

Last night, as I was posting the picture for September 10th, I had a thought that I should find something patriotic to take a picture of today as a way of remembering that day 10 years ago when our world was changed forever.

I didn't get to it, though. After a really bad day with a cranky kid, I was happy to be able to get a few pictures of her - happy finally - playing in her very first living room blanket fort.

Just now, as I'm getting ready to post such a random slice-of-life picture, my initial thought was that I really should've made the time to do something a little special. But my next thought was that this kind of picture - a toddler playing happily with her daddy - IS special.

It means that, although the terrorists tried their best to kill the American way of life along with those thousands of Americans who lost their lives that day, they failed. Yes, certainly everything has changed and my toddler will never know the world like I knew it until September 10, 2001. But, we still live freely. We still enjoy life. We still worship our God in whatever way we want. We still let our little girls go to school and be whatever they want to be, right along with the boys. We still get up every day and go to work, or school, or church, or the playground, or the store. We travel. We stay home. We have picnics. We go to parties. We go to the movies and concerts. We watch our favorite sports teams play games. We LIVE.

And because we live, and live well for the most part, they failed.

So this picture of my toddler, playing in her first blanket fort with her daddy IS special. It shows that life goes on. And that, by virtue of being here and going about our business, we win.

And, in the words of my friend Kim as she posted on Facebook about going on a hike this morning on the Maine coast with her family.... "Suck it, terrorists."