How do you tell your three-year-old that he’s never going home?

It’s September 15, 2001.  We’ve spent the past four days at my parents’ home in Westchester County, New York.  Nana and Grandpa are, as always, doting over their two boys. 

But this visit is different.  We arrived on September 11th.  Straight from our home in Battery Park City.  Directly across the street from Ground Zero.  We are the displacements.  Four of the thousands who were displaced after two planes flew into the World Trade Centers and demolished our once-peaceful neighborhood.

Needless to say, our family was fortunate.  We are all alive and healthy.  We merely need to find a new home.  But our three-year-old wants to know when he is going home. 

Even if we chose to do so, we could not return to live in our apartment yet.  The complex is still closed.  We do not know when it will reopen.  We returned yesterday, without the kids, to pick up underwear and various valuables.  It was surreal.  No longer the inviting, family-friendly neighborhood we called home four days earlier.  With the Twin Towers, our backyard, no longer protecting our once-sacred enclave.

We tell our three-year-old that the building is closed right now.  We are going to try to find a new home.  We are so lucky, we tell him.  We can stay with Nana and Grandpa until we find a new home.  He agrees.  He loves staying with his grandparents.  But he is still confused. 

His friends, other Battery Park City refugees, tell him that there were fires and that our home was hurt.  He becomes frightened and begins asking about returning to our home on “four” – the fourth floor – more frequently. 

Once again, we try to reassure him.  The “old house,” as he renamed it, is fine.  We just think that it would be better to live closer to Nana and Grandpa.  We name his displaced friends who will be making their home within twenty minutes of us, trying to convince him that we will have a great time living here. 

Should we take him back to Ground Zero to show him that the apartment is still standing?  We are concerned about the air.  And the missing towers.  Our three-year-old used to play inside the concourse of the World Trade Center.  It was our mall, complete with the Gap, Banana Republic, and our favorite daily indulgence, Krispy Kreme Doughnuts.  We were on our way there when the first plane hit.