5 years.

The weather today is stormy, cold and unfriendly. It�s how we felt five years ago when the weather was shockingly, unbelievably perfect. Shell-shocked, we banded together, my husband and I and the baby, wandering the eerily deserted streets of our Chicago home. We sat on a bench in Grant Park under the shadow of skyscrapers and watched AJ crawl in the grass in the September sun while we flinched at every plane that flew past � the ones still mid-flight when it happened.

We felt like we had fallen from grace. The town I grew up in lost scores, though no one I could recall. But we were all the walking wounded. It was the first time the news felt real. It was the minute we all grew up.

I won�t read the paper today. There�s nothing to remember because nothing�s been forgotten.

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