When I was reaching to turn on the radio news the other day my daughter asked me not to.  She said it made her scared.  Her older siblings are away at college.  She is lonesome.  She is worried.

Back when the big kids were little in the aftermath of nine eleven I remember reading a piece on how very young children didn’t realize that the constant replay of the twin towers falling were always the same buildings; they believed the attacks were continuous.  They were scared.

I remember when my oldest was little and we walked over to Urban Park to watch the airplanes fighting the Cerro Grande fire the day before evacuation.  I remember him the night before the Las Conchas evacuation watching the fire climb the ridge toward town wondering if all our pets, stuffed animals, and Legos would fit in the car should we have to flee.  He is twenty one now and still gives firetrucks a wary look.

I remember coming home from college on a Friday night in the early eighties watching a report about a new virus on TV while sorting my laundry.  It attacked young gay men.  My brother was a young gay man.  He died a few years later.

Yesterday at the grocery store everyone looked sort of dazed and scared.  Maybe it’s time though that after we wash our hands,  we turn off all the media and take the kids to the park, read our favorite spring bunny book, ask an older neighbor if they need anything, and try to be brave.  It is a beautiful spring day.

Lynn Hanrahan