"...Hearts and Minds of the People...Mouths of Babes....."

Lots of words, and not just a few tears, flowing today.

Which is, of course, to be expected given the date and what it symbolizes.

Interesting thing about words, though.

In even the most horrific of times,  the most poignant expressions can consist of just a few.

Words, that is.

Twelve years ago, I experienced that.

As we sat around the flat screen, transfixed by the images of that September morning, my eldest granddaughter went about the business of being a few months shy of three years old.

That business, in large measure, consisting of assorted wanderings around the room, attentions focused, and then just as easily unfocused, on various and sundry toys, books, games and/or household furnishings, accented by the occasional comments that likely seemed crystal inside their commenter's thirty two month old head but, in order to be understood by the elders, requiring just a little more attention than any of us were equipped to offer, distracted as we were by collapsing towers and badly damaged odd shaped military buildings and talk of airliners disappearing from Pennsylvania skies.

Until one comment caught both ears and hearts in a single, simple, excruciatingly exquisite moment.

"A bad man flew an airplane into the building."

On this twelfth remembrance of that clear, blue morning, that granddaughter has long ago moved on to other pastimes, having become a fine student, a loving and caring granddaughter, daughter, sister and friend. Gently finding her way to her fifteenth birthday, full of ideas and opinions, articulate and thoughtful, provocative, even philosophical at times, as she ponders the world around her.

And, as these things happen, probably experiencing today's commemorations through the same, hazy filter of time long passed with which her parents viewed Dallas and Dealey Plaza and her grandparents viewed Pearl Harbor, even Ford's Theatre.

Yesterday's headlines having evolved into today's history lessons.

And she will, as many will, likely hear hundreds, even thousands, of words shared on a day filled with words.

Words of pain, words of sadness, words of anger, words of sorrow.

Words of hope and optimism and freedom.

And, just as likely, will not remember a few simple, excruciatingly exquisite words that she, herself, spoke twelve years ago today.

"A bad man flew an airplane into the building".

Just a few words.

And not just a few tears.