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and last updated September 17th., 2001.
WELCOME TO MY DAY..
IT IS NICE TO HAVE YOU SHARE IT WITH ME...
They say we will all remember, as with Kennedy's assassination, exactly where we were when we first heard that America was under attack.
Well, I was asleep, having been confined to bed by a partucularly gruesome virus, and the poor husband had to endure the knowledge alone until he could bear it no longer, and woke me with the news.
So, like millionsof others I stayed up all night to watch the CNN broadcast, even my New York Times updates not being up to date enough..and kept the computer on to check on New York friends, all of whom were safe, though in varying degrees of shock and disbelief. And, from further afield, others were calling to tell me of callup-notices arriving or having volunteered their services.
And I had a pretty severe version of whatever flu I hadn't been vaccinated against, which added to the sense of disbelief but which left me home to watch CNN whenever I could stay upright which was around two hours in every four. And I think what struck me most wasn't how well the Americans were coping, and how much strength they were gaining from it, because I had predicted that, but it was the vehemence of the realization that we are all in this together . True, Americans have finally lost their innocence, but their joining the rest of the 'free" world will make us all a formidable team indeed!
And watching the Changing Of The Guard to a slow-marched Star-Spangled Banner was strange for an Aussie
of my generation, raised on the British Empire and our allegiance to it. It was as though the Queen, in ordering that unprecedented alteration of the ageold ritual, was acknowledging the changing of something was bigger..an Old World Order changing to a New, untried system...
Funny, too..on the Wednesday night here, having watched dawn break over that so-changed New York skyline, all my kids phoned home to talk about it, and , each in their own way admitted they could now uunderstand my pro-USA feelings..an apology of a kind, I think, for their former vehement condemnation of my enjoyment of most things American .
Well, folks, in OUR family, everything seems to happen at once..and we KNEW we were about to have two babies..so some upheaval was predictable.....
But noone could have foreseen the terrible incidents in New York and Washington, or the headlines that screamed WAR!!
Or the incredible outburst of mutual affront, the gathering of national clans, and the warm realization of pro-American feeling..
The younger son, the new father, calling from Abu Dhabi to say he had wife and new son home from hospital , saw things more from an Arab viewpoint, of course, and touched on HIS view of the Israeli situation, but thanked me for putting a birth notice in our city paper for him, though I had to explain that it hadn't received the attention it might have,
since the Geelong Advertiser, for September 12th, was rather preoccupied with delivering the story of the attack, and probably a lot of people completely missed the classified ads that day. So it wasn't the joyful publication I had envisaged.Instead, I had to think hard about the fact that this child, a big 4.72k baby boy, has been born a Muslim, and is being raised a Muslim in an Arab country. And that with our Prime MInister promising to support USA in whatever retaliatory measures considered appropriate, we could well end up with our own family version of the Civil War.
But all that was well in the future when then Astra Knight, grandchild number 6, celebrated her third birthday with a MatHatter Tea Party just three days before her father, Chris, had to leave for Spain to run the party of parties there.. !
And that was the last outing for daughter Fiona, with her caesarean delivery booked for the day after Chris left, the Thursday, and that was the end of our relative tranquillity because there was so much to be planned and organized as Fiona's other five children would require feeding, clothing and transport during her absence, not just to school and to the hospital, but to their many obligatory activities as well, Maddie being in a drama group and Stephanie actually having three nights of a Musical production to be attended.Stephanie in parand we had a lot of incoming orders at work,the result of our visit to the Gift and Homewares Fair, which required MY presence, especially since we were having to mover stock almost daily to accommodate the builders' requirements. It looked like becoming a complicated rostering, so we had a schedule drawn up,and emailed, and printed.. and we almost stuck to it!
And the baby was safely delivered, and, much to the surprise and joy of everyone except solitary, resigned grandson Josh, was another girl..
And Claudia Grace had LOTS of siblings and cousins to make her first few hours "just like home"..so much like home, in fact, that nursing staff had to request that the door be kept CLOSED and the children on the inside of it!
And proud father, Brad, wanted me to put pictures on the internet so his sister could see the new arrival, so I did it that evening, kind of bleary-eyed by then..before I cut the school lunches..something I haven't had to do for MANY years,.dreading having to be up early to get everyone to school,before work.. except that noone was quite up to going to school..Stephanie too tired and Maddie too sick..but I still went to work..just a bit later than usual!
And then, at the beginning of the busy Saturday monring shift, we were told we could OPEN the door to the mall.....
Which was great because having customers getting upset at having to "walk right around" had been pretty wearing, and, besides, we all needed groceries and haircuts and none of us had wanted to walk right around, either...
Course, that meant a bit of a scatter for me as stock we had been displaying in front of that rollerdoor had to be very smartly disappeared, but we had the extra hands of granddaughter no 2, Stephanie, to work as "gopher" keeping Sister Maddie company, and freeing Natalie and Jennie to do the usual busy things..and even though Maddie was feeling quite wretched with a virus, we did manage . And Stephanie ran errands and even even made us hair appointments for the following week!
And now, of course, we have to live through the syndrome of having the OTHER wing of the shop Boarded up while they rebuild THAT facade, and that means more moving and rearranging of affected areas, and now the husband/proprieter has expressed his intention of installing a Photo-Lab, and expanding into the shop next door, and wants a plan of how we can move everything ELSE, and I was feeling a bit illused and quite stressed about what has seemed to be a never-ending clearing, moving and reassembling task..
until world events showed me just how small a task ours is, after all..
And of course, like everyone else, and listening as I work here to the ANZUS TREATY being invoked in Parliament, I can only watch and wait to see just how MUCH our world will change......
and for the first time since childhood I am glad I am no longer young, aren't you?
Love to everyone ,and everyone on our side!
-from
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©Robin Knight, 2001.
