One Day

I've spent a full year trying to figure out how to frame this post; it has been in my drafts folder since September 10th, 2011. This subject has eluded me not because I don't care, but because I can never get the words right, can never strike that balance between overly sentimental and pessimistically preachy. Obviously, the subject of 9/11 is touchy to begin with -- a political hotbed of accusation, a stark and painful reminder of the day that changed everything. Eleven years, it seems, have flown by in an instant. For the past week, I have been filled with an odd sensation, just thinking about how, eleven years ago today, I had no idea that in a few short hours -- 144, 96, now just under one -- my life, and the lives of every other citizen of this world we call home, would be irrevocably altered.

The loss that we endured on that crisp September morning eleven years ago... the loss of lives, of our sense of security, of our perceived national innocence.... was, and remains to this day, impossible to capture in words. The sacrifice of countless innocent lives since, of men and women, mothers and fathers, sons, daughters, brothers, sisters, husbands, wives, friends – it seems senseless in a way that I can't describe. The world as we knew it spun off course that day, and sometimes it feels like it hasn’t stopped since. The hatred and vitriol spewed across our televisions, facebook and other social media is increasingly alarming, particularly during election years such as this. I fear that as time goes on, the tragedy that occurred just eleven short years ago, a series of moments that most of us can recall in the minutest of detail, will be swept up in the tide of partisan politics and other modern issues, joining the list of anniversaries that prompt us to ask, “where were you?” and then, without even stopping to hear the answer, go on with our individual lives.

It feels easy to mash them all together, doesn't it? To wrap the whole thing in a neat bundle in our brains, dubbed "the tragedies of our nation," and drag it out of our mental dustbins to be reflected on once a year?

That cannot happen. We cannot LET that happen. We owe it to the people who woke up that morning excited for a trip across the country. The people who, just going about their regular day, didn’t get to see tomorrow. The incredibly brave, strong, heroic people who stood up on that day, and have continued to stand for us every day since, to say, “Not today. Not tomorrow. Not ever again.”

In 2009, Congress passed a bipartisan act declaring September 11^th the National Day of Service and Remembrance. It isn't about political affiliation; it's about personal appreciation and respect for our fellow countrymen and human beings, for those here with us and those who are gone. With that in mind, I encourage you to step up today, if even in the smallest of ways, to show that you care. Donate blood, smile at a stranger, register to vote – whatever we can do to remember, to reflect on that day and to honor those people: do it.

We owe it to them.