I remember

I remember sitting on my parents’ bed on a winter Sunday night in 1964 to watch a group called The Beatles sing on The Ed Sullivan Show. I can still recall the excitement in the small bedroom as my family gathered round the small TV. I was seventeen. I was in love (with Paul).

I remember coming home from high school on a Friday afternoon in the late fall of 1963, turning on the TV set and hearing that the President had been shot minutes before. I was 16.  I was bereft.

I remember going with my husband to Central Park in the summer of 1969 to stand before a huge screen with thousands of others as an astronaut named Neil Armstrong walked on the moon. I was 22. I was exhilarated.

I remember waiting in line at school to get a shot in my arm in 1954 so I wouldn’t get something called polio. I was seven. I was terrified.

I remember dropping off my dry cleaning on a beautiful fall morning at around 9 am in 2001 and hearing these words from the young woman behind the counter: “A plane crashed into the World Trade Center.” When I went outside, fire engines by the dozens were racing down Lexington Avenue. I was 54. I was anxious but I didn’t know why.

Every one of our lives is filled with momentous moments, great and horrific. Every moment has played a part in shaping me into the FOF woman I am today. Life is scary, exciting, bewildering, depressing, awe inspiring, and about 50 other adjectives. But we only have one and we’ve got to live it with all we have.