Not surprisingly, some children have found the terror spilling over into their sleep. A few days after the terrorist attack, mixed with our grief and fear, our family was dealing with a more practical and immediate concern. My daughter was scheduled to begin her freshman studies at Northeastern University in Boston the next week. A boy spends hours in front of a television set watching news coverage about the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. People are donating blood.
Soldiers cry in front of a flag at half-staff.
I live with my mother. The problem is, she belittles and shames me. It is bad enough to deal with schizophrenia without constantly being insulted. They are also the generation whose members may learn firsthand about a kind of war that many of us are still struggling to envision. As we see firefighters and policemen struggle through the cleanup, and we contemplate those who made these skyscrapers fall, the Pentagon fold and people die, the pain quickly turns to anger.