That’s the date on the black-bordered billboards that went up within days after It Happened. The date that would forever after be a day of solemn remembrance; a day to remember a horrible tragedy that happened to us all. No longer just the tenth birthday of some little girl in Peoria that nobody ever heard of.
That’s all it was when I woke up that morning. Pretty exciting; I was going into double figures, and that felt like a milestone. It was raining, but that was no big deal: I was used to nasty weather on my birthday. All part of living in the Midwest and having a birthday late in November. Because I was beginning to care about clothes, I had a birthday outfit that I got to open first thing in the morning and wear to school that day. It was a pink sweater with pearl buttons up the front, and a matching pink faux-fur collar, and a pleated wool skirt in a plaid of soft pastels, pink and sky blue and pale yellow. I loved pink, and I loved being ten, and I didn’t mind walking to school in the wind and rain under angry dark skies. My best friend Patty and I had our umbrellas, and our conversation as we walked, and the delicious knowledge that Thanksgiving was almost here and Christmas would follow soon after. Life was good.
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