I sat down to write this column about something else. And then I saw the date. And nothing else seemed appropriate, really, except to remember.

I was in the living room of the parsonage of Webb City Baptist Church, where we lived as a portion of the pay my then-husband received for working as the church's part-time youth director. He was at work at school, and I was at work staying home with our baby. Grace was 1 year old. I don't remember what we were doing, just that we were playing. Probably building with wooden alphabet blocks.

I had lofty ideas about television at the time, mainly that we didn't watch it. I didn't want my kid in front of a screen. My friend Lori Heinrichs knew this and called me. "You have to turn on your TV," she said. "Something is happening that you need to see."

We didn't get any channels, so I scooped up Grace and drove across town to my parents' house. They were working at school too, but I went in and turned on their television. I remember holding Grace and watching Dan Rather process the horrors of the attack on the World Trade Center. The news was so different then. Information traveled slower and in a more formal way. Sometimes what he was saying was a little behind what I could already see happening on the screen.

I remember he was calm and cautious, comforting. I also remember the feel of Grace in my arms. Rocking her in my dad's recliner and........

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