9/11 widow: Don't judge (I'm not a harpy or a witch)

[RamboLiberal]

http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/427727p-360655c.html

I am not a "harpy." I am not a "witch." I have never taken a moment's pleasure from my husband's death on Sept. 11, 2001.

What I am is a "9/11 widow." I am a mother of three, and I dread today - Father's Day - more than any other.

For four straight years, Father's Day has been a raw reminder of what I - and thousands of women like me - lost on that cloudless Tuesday morning almost five years ago.

Today, I will watch my three beautiful daughters and be amazed at their resiliency - and how their lives honor their father every single day. Of course, I will also think about what we might have been doing today as a family - what we should be doing today. A barbecue, probably, or maybe a day at the beach with Dad. Today, the hole in my heart will grow a bit bigger.

So I will seek comfort in being with other 9/11 families, people who know what it's like to be forced to mourn so very publicly. Whether I want to or not, I still live in a 9/11 fishbowl. Complete strangers feel free to judge how I choose to grieve, how I should channel my energy. Through activism over safety and security? Into concerns about the Ground Zero memorials? Or simply by raising my children quietly in the shadows of those fallen towers?

[Minnesota Libra]

1. The question for the foreseeable future will be.............

....."So before you pass judgment, again, I ask: Does anyone want to trade places with me today?"

If I had Maan Coulter's email/snail mail address I'd send that thing this. I doubt it would do any good but it would give me the satisfaction of knowing some idiot might read it.

[cynatnite]

2. I could never imagine this kind of pain...

Thanks for posting.

K&R!

[monarch]

3. K & R

Something to think about on Father's Day.

[Flirtus]

4. I miss my dad, too.

He was also killed in an airplane crash, but a long time ago. Children are more resiliant than parents, it must have to do with survival of the species.

It's hard to have your existence defined by one experience that you didn't choose, but your girls had loving parents and still have you. I'll be thinking of you today.

[pooja]

5. Would have been nice if she acknowledged

all the families that are losing in this mockery. In the guise of revenging their husbands, countless other's have lost father's.... It would have been nice for her to mention the soldiers.

[Mikimouse]

7. The soldiers and their families were not attacked in the media...

The 9/11 widows were, and in the nastiest possible way. Can't attack them or respond to them? I think tha RW has pretty much outed itself on this one.

[Cha]

9. She doesn't have to..she

is sticking up for those who were villified by the Hag republiCON spokeswoman, anslander.

[CJCRANE]

10. Iraq is not connected to 9/11...

there was no reason for her to mention Iraq.

[MissWaverly]

6. I am so sorry, America does not think that

There will be a day when these evil days will be behind us, where the hate mongers who mocked
us will be in shadow. Where we the American people will move forward taking with us our wounded
who have suffered during these times. We will work to make America a better place, where the
widows and the wounded are not mocked by those who would make an easy buck from someone else's
pain. I grew up in such a world. My parents who had lived through the Depression and World
War II, made the 50s and the 60s a better place. They took time with their kids and their
community. They want to give for a better tomorrow. I see that day up ahead. We will make
America a kinder, gentler place, we will tackle global warming and take our place at the
world community as a responsible nation working for peace with our global neighbors.

[Cha]

8. Imagine having to lose your

husband and the father of your kids in an attack that bush could have prevented if he hadn't have been so wrapped up in his have mores and himself.

And then having to defend yourself against the republiCON Hag spokeswoman who sharpens her fangs on mat lauer?