Never forget.
Those two words have a very specific meaning and bring up many emotions for Americans over the past 12 years.
We won’t, by the way. But our children might – the same as many of us don’t connect with December 7 the way many of our ancestors did. And in many ways, that is understandable. How would I expect anyone under the age of 20 to feel as connected to the words “Never Forget” or “September 11, 2001” or 9/11” as I do?
Those of us who experienced it, we will certainly never forget the horror and heroism of that day. We won’t forget where we were, what we saw or what we felt.
For each of us, it is both different and the same. Different reactions and emotions, different locations and circumstances depending on a litany of factors, but in many ways, we felt the same as Americans.
For whatever we are, whatever we do or say to each other, we are all still Americans. We all share this space, these American liberties, ideals and freedoms.
We may disagree on what we should do or what we have done in the realms of politics, finance, religion, and a host of other issues, but we remain united in our steadfast belief that we can, as a collective unit, overcome anything.
And that includes fear.
Yet 9/11 rocked us – or at least it did me. Though our anger and resolve grew, for that day and in the immediate aftermath, there was fear. How could there not be? But fear is temporary as long as our resolve and determination are permanent. Out of fear comes a clearer picture of what it is we should do, what we can do and what we will do moving forward.
Some did not feel fear that day – our heroic first responders who did not have time to fear or think, simply react. And we are eternally grateful. For a moment, we were unified. We were proud, we were the best we could be in the worst of times, which merely serves as reminder that it is when things get toughest, darkest and hardest that we find what we are capable of.
Americans are capable of great things.
Always have been and always will be.
There are reasons why we struggle, why we are not at a constant peak as a society, but now is not the time for that analysis. Instead, we should reflect on 9/11 and how we responded, how we survived, how we thrived and how grateful we are for what we did and do take for granted.
Time has certainly moved quickly for us as a country over the past dozen years. Personally, I went from being in college in the fall of 2001 to married for eight years with four children and two dogs in 2013.
Lately, as I look out at the late summer/early autumn sunsets as my children play, and I see those amber hues setting down the in West, I feel lucky that they don’t know the world we felt on 9/11. It is bright, it is beautiful and filled with color.
Our children are safe – as much as they can be, and perhaps as safe as children have ever been. Over the past 100 years, we’ve had several global wars and the Cold War that left a threat of nuclear destruction hanging over our daily lives.
But we are as safe as you probably can be given that nothing is ever truly in our control. Only how we handle ourselves and how we react is within our power. What we have been given, though, is the greatest gift there can be.
What we have here is what we always had: freedom.
We have just become more and more cynical and more and more self-involved about how much more freedom is owed to us specifically as individuals. The greater good still matters, and in the later morning hours of September 11, 2001 in New York, Washington, D.C. and in the skies above Pennsylvania, it mattered most.
Doing what’s right even when it’s not easy, or popular – or safe – these are the “little” things that make us different. We may stray, we may impose, but as long as we hold on to these American values, then we always have a chance to shine like the beacon of freedom we are and have been.
Life is fleeting, as we often reminded. The days come and go and what we do with our dash in between birth and death matter – but how we choose to act during that time matters even more.
Twelve years after 9/11, we often remember that human compassion, kindness and tenderness did more for us and more for the world than any law or military act could.
We cared – and still do, as events like Newtown and the Boston Marathon occur, about people we’ve never met. Truly, genuinely, care.
Don’t lose that.
That can be passed on to the next generation, even if our exact memories cannot.
Never forget.
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