"Healing Fields"

After we finished at the water park yesterday the girls asked if we could go and look at all the flags. Every year after 9/11 Tempe Beach Park has set up the "Healing Fields". It is such a neat display of patriotism and unity!!

3,000 flags, one for each person who died in 9/11- it truly is a breath taking sight to see all of those flags in one place blowing in the wind and standing as a brilliant reminder.

It was so neat to be there with the kids and see their reaction to it all. Both the older two girls right away recognized that this was a reverent situation and were very somber. Hailey liked to go around and look at the pictures on the poles and read the little blurb about the person who died. Once I told them what the stuffed animals meant at the bottom of the poles we went around the field looking for all of the ones with stuffed animals- representing the children who died in the tragedy.

The girls all got small American flags from a volunteer who was handing them out- Annie loved hers!!!

In front of the fields of American Flags stood this GIANT unity flag. It is about three stories tall and comprises all of the flags from every state. In the middle printed on the picture of the statue of Liberty is the names of everyone who died during 9/11.

The older girls loved finding the different state flags that they knew and were pretty much just in awe of the grandeur of the whole thing.



It was such a neat experience, especially with the girls and for me to have the opportunity to view it all from a child's eyes. I almost think the girls liked the healing fields better than the water park- ha who knew?