Like so many others, I was profoundly shocked and disturbed by the acts of terror on Sept. 11, 2001. That day and for many days afterward I sat helpless before the television for hours on end and gave myself over to the horrifying images. Shot from countless camera angles, the airplanes struck the towers over and over--the fireballs errupted a hundred times and more. I couldn't stand to watch, but I also couldn't look away.

During the following days and weeks a slowly growing depression came over me. The pictures were stuck inside my head, and the slightest trigger could raise them before my mind's eye. Eventually, bioterror and war images were added to the mix. Almost any sort of visual provocation put me into a tailspin--especially the silhouettes of airplanes. Even the sight of my son's toy planes were setting off feelings of fear and sadness.

It was also my son who showed me the way to a solution. About six weeks after Sept. 11 Julian began to make some simple drawings of towers and planes. In previous weeks he too had obviously taken in enough from "the accident with the towers" to require some way to deal with it. His way of confronting and coping with those images was also the right impluse for me.

Inspired by the good sense of a four-year-old, I too began to draw the pictures in my head.

(These memory images are not for sale or commercial use. They are only intended to be shared.)

--BCR

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