9/11

Growing up, I never understood why my parents talked about the JFK assassination the way they did. The slightest reference to it and suddenly they were both recounting every detail of their lives on the day it happened. Something happened to them when they reminisced about where they were when they heard the president had been shot, a physical change: a faraway look in the eye, an expression of bewilderment tinged with sorrow. It was as if they'd momentarily traveled back in time to November 22, 1963. They were little kids again, 8 and 9 years old, and the ground had shifted under their feet. It could never be put back to where it was before.