"Mind if I sit with you?"
Salad Boy had a bowl of cereal in his hand. I was sitting at the dinette table. I was reading through a catalog of magazine titles. It's subscription drive time again. He's raising money at school. The more titles he sells, the closer he gets to earning a prize or two. He's locked in on 14 subscriptions. That gets him a ride in a Hummer limo.
"Of course not," I said. "I'd be thrilled."
He sat down and dug in. I read off some goofy names of magazines to him. "Cat Fancy" made him laugh. So did "Vibe Vixen" and "Shambhala Sun."
We talked a little about school, about how he was apprehensive about the running he'll be doing in P.E. today. We talked about the Bucs and about who won the Monday night football games. I chided him for the umpteenth time when he tried to put a pair of dirty socks on instead of going and getting a fresh pair.
What didn't come up? Specifically, the anniversary of 9/11. I'm sure it was somewhere hiding out in the backs of our minds. He told me the night before that a teacher had postponed something in his class because of 9/11 activities at his school. He also had flipped on "Flight 93" earlier in the morning when he climbed into our bed while I was out of the room.
So it was there. It always will be. But it wasn't ... there.
I didn't make him take his cell phone to school, just in case something happened and his mother I needed to hear his voice. I didn't think to bring the anniversary up. I hadn't even recalled until about an hour ago that I had posted this on the anniversary a couple years back.
This household has that luxury, I guess. Tens of thousands of other families who lost friends and loved ones in 9/11 and in the resulting combat do not.
Which is why I'll always cherish mornings like today.