Nine years ago I was a pregnant stay-at home mother with a 15 month old toddler. I had actually just gotten back from a trip to Baltimore with DH a day or two before. I had been talking to him on the phone that morning. I remember that I was irritated with him about something, nothing serious, just normal marital irritation over a trifle that I can't even remember.

After our phone call, I turned on the Today show and was playing on the floor with The Rationalist when everything began to take place on 9/11.

I wish I could say that I was heartbroken. I was shocked and called DH right away to let him know what was going on, but I wasn't heartbroken.

My numbness was caused by a lack of knowledge. When I saw the towers tumbling down that morning, I didn't realize that thousands of people were in and around them. I had no sense for how immense they were, what people did there everyday, or that there was great difficulty in evacuating people after the planes hit.

I simply didn't understand the immensity of what had happened, or the scope of how many people had perished in the space of an hour. It took me quite a while to take it all in, to realize that the far-away visuals I saw couldn't communicate what had happened to all those people.

Retriever linked to a 9/11 post that has some disturbing photos showing what I could never see in my living room in Florida...and it provides that missing focus of grief that I never fully felt that morning because all I could see was steel and smoke and memorials.

I never saw the people. I could never comprehend what they went through.

It's important to see them and to remember.