Phone, instant messaging and email, Facebook or Twitter. Best of all, in person…I’m able to interact with my kids and grandkids (and I do mean GRAND!) any day of the week. We laugh, commiserate, share funny stories and photographs. We share life—and love.

Birthdays, Christmas. My grandkids put in gift requests with shining eyes and hopeful hearts and giggles. I’ve got a well-earned reputation as a pretty cool Santa, you know.

They call me Moe, and I revel in it. I feel blessed in these moments but also grateful and humbled, for I realize how fleeing life is. How lucky I am.

During this weekend of contemplation on the lives so brutally cut short on September 11th 2001, let us also remember the children. Asia, Rodney, Bernard, Zoe and Dana (ages 3 to 11) lost on American Airlines Flight 77. Juliana, David and Christine (ages 2 to 4) lost on United Airlines Flight 175. Children on their way to visit friends and family, to explore the magic of Disneyland, to check out a new home in Australia. Innocent angels all of them. May they rest in the arms of God.

If we come away from this senseless brutality with nothing else, let it be a desire to hug our spouses and children and grandchildren. To listen, really listen, when they talk about their days—no matter how busy we think we are. To tell them we love them often, and loud.

Until next time, wave to your neighbor as you pull out of your driveway, tell the grocery clerk she has a great smile, say thanks to your postal worker. Take that moment to be a little kinder. To connect.

Chances are pretty good those seeds of faith in humanity will come back to you.