9/11, West Richland Style

I know that all across this wonderful nation today, villages and cities, counties and states are conducting memorial events to honor the fallen from ten years ago.

I live in West Richland, WA…technically the fourth of the Tri-Cities (Kennewick, Pasco, and Richland being the actual three).  We’re a small town, and I mean that in a good way.  Some small towns can be hotbeds of gossip and suffocating attitudes.  But here we’re basically friendly, without being cloyingly sweet.  My son went a little too far on his scooter the other day and I received no fewer than three texts/calls from friends who thought he probably shouldn’t be so far afield.  We watch out for each other.  We volunteer and we nurture and we dream.

Yesterday, a local Cub Scout troop erected almost 3,000 small flags along a major thoroughfare in our city, Bombing Range Rd. Every 3.5 feet, the little Cub Scouts, most of whom were not even born when the attacks happened, planted a flag to commemorate a life lost in the attacks.

I took pictures, but they don’t compare with seeing them in real life –  a mile of flags, planted along both sides of the road.  One local remarked on Facebook,  “Just cried my way all the way down Bombing Range… Not sure I am ready to drive back up.”

I was pregnant on 9/11/2001.  I gave birth to a daughter just over three months later.  I love her, my son, and my husband.  I love this city.  I love this country.  God bless the United (truly, united in so many ways) States of America.