One disaster after another

It's odd seeing all the Sept. 11 remembrances this weekend playing out against the backdrop of the ongoing Hurricane Katrina drama -- sort of like, "We interrupt your current disaster to bring you these images from a previous tragedy." For the people directly affected by the terrorist attacks, I don't suppose the memory ever fades, but for the rest of us, time just keeps on passing. Back on Sept. 11, 2001, my kids were in their second year at an elementary school they've both graduated from now. I was in the second year of a job it looks like I'm going to be leaving now. Since that frightening day, my daughter's become a teenager, my son's grown to within about an inch of my height, my children's last grandparent has passed away. Life goes on, as impossible as that may seem when the tragedy is fresh, and four years from now we'll be having memorials for the victims of Hurricane Katrina and looking back, vaguely through all our own personal history, to remember what it was like when New Orleans was underwater and on the news 24 hours a day. Those of us, that is, who are blessed to not have had our whole lives washed away.