Today is going to be a difficult day, and I can at least take comfort in knowing I am not alone. I work in the schools and the children in 6th-8th grades have only a vague recollection of the day. The staff keeps up a happy front and I have a hard time doing that. I feel like I'm in a fog.

Our son celebrated his fifth birthday yesterday. I've heard so many people say "Has it been five years already?" We will never say that. When my son was one week old, it had been a week since 9/11. When my son was one month old, it had been one month. I marked each month for the first two years of his life, as mothers do with their infants. Now I mark each year and even each half year.

I have yet to celebrate his birthday AFTER 9/11. Like if his birthday were to fall on a Friday, most parents would celebrate Saturday or Sunday. I just feel an intense need to celebrate BEFORE 9/11 because my baby was born before that time. He was born into a world of security and peace.

I will never forget waking up in the hospital bleery eyed with my newborn who had slept in my arms all night. My husband flipped through TV channels looking for something to have on in the background while we couldn't take our eyes off our new son. We came across a news story about a plane that hit one of the towers and I told him to turn it off. He didn't and five minutes later, we watched live as the second plane hit. It was horrifying. My hormones were all off as it was and I just kept thinking about what kind of a world I had just brought my newborn into.

I didn't like being in the hospital that day at all. It was such a big building and everyone had a fear of public places that day and for a long time after. We heard a sonic boom around 10:00 AM and could only imagine what it was and it seemed so close. We were in a fairly large city and it scared us. Later we learned it was the sound of a couple fighters leaving the nearby air force base.

My heart is certainly not in my job today.