It Gets Harder
With each tick of the clock, it gets harder. How are we supposed to act? What are we supposed to do?
There was a time when we all agreed that shock and horror were the appropriate responses. Now? I don't know.
We don't seem to agree even a little bit. We criticize one another for talking about it, for not talking about it, for watching news coverage, for not watching news coverage. Grieving is a deeply personal thing, but yet we think that if people are doing it in a way that doesn't work for us, they are wrong.
NEVER FORGET.
We shout the words.
What do they even mean?
Alexis asked me that today. She asked me why grown-ups kept saying "Never forget." I tried to explain, but came up short because what do the words even mean?
Nobody has forgotten. Sometimes we choose to remember silently.Sometimes we choose to remember out loud. Sometimes we choose to remember while laughing. It doesn't remember how we do it -- the fact is that we all remember. Even Alexis -- who wasn't alive yet when it happened -- remembers because she has seen the images every September 11th for her entire life. It is part of the history books that she will some day read. It's the subject of the memorials she has visited. It's as part of her American experience as baseball, apple pie, and McDonald's.
With each tick of the clock, it gets harder.
Wednesday, September 11, 2013
Reader Comments (6)
I don't know why but I get ridiculously irritated by folks saying "Never Forget!" Is that really a worry? Is anyone who lived through that day really going to forget what happened? Of course not. It isn't like we are going to play trivial pursuit in 10 years and have the question "What happened on Sept 11, 2001?" and be all...oh wait, it is on the tip of my tongue. I guess I get irritated because I feel like people are telling me not to forget the fear so that we can remain paralyzed and continue to hand over our civil rights in hopes that our government will stop it from ever happening again.
Sigh. I don't mean people shouldn't reflect and discuss. I just don't like that never forget sentiment. As if we ever could.
It's funny you should mention how your daughter remembers even though she wasn't born because my son came home from school today so irritated at a 10 year old classmate who swears she was in NYC and watched the towers fall. It turns out her parents were there and those memories of theirs feel like her because she's grown up hearing about it all her life.
The only reason I support the "never forget" movement is because 9/11 conspiracy theories abound online (where our kids now get so much info) and schools really gloss over the details of what happened that day. My kids' classrooms spend less that 30 minutes teaching about 9/11 and almost all that lesson covers the time line of events rather than who did it and why it happened. We need to be sure we educate our kids about the events that day and the story behind them rather than just the time line of "at 8:05 a plane hit a building..."
There are people who insist the holocaust never happened.
Part of me understands because Robin is correct. But part of me also thinks that we have a bit of an unhealthy obsession. It's like we're expected to relive the trauma every year. They've found that talk therapy doesn't help with PTSD the way they thought it once did. That every time someone speaks about a trauma, it brings back the emotional and hormonal responses to that trauma, reinforces it and makes it harder to overcome it. I'm not a psychologist, but IMHO all of us who witnessed 9/11, whether on TV or in person, have varying levels of PTSD from that day. It's important to honor those who lost their lives that day, but I'm not sure how productive it is to view photos/video of the traumatic events and aftermath year after year.
I've always seen "never forget" more as a directive for the future than a statement for the present. It's a reminder to ourselves to not let this day be forgotten by future generations, to "never forget" the event, because when we lose the event we lose the lessons learned.
As for re-living it, I think you hit the nail on the head when you said that everyone grieves differently. I choose not to watch footage. I am selective about the stories I read. I have never been to a memorial service. And despite (or perhaps because) my husband being a firefighter, I have never visited a firehouse on 9/11. I also choose to have a one-day boycott of social media. Even my blog post is pre-written and I don't read the comments until the next day.
That is how I handle it. It works for me. If someone else feels that they need to spend the day re-watching the footage, reading news stories, talking about it, going to memorial services, visiting firehouses, doing good deeds, and/or being on social media... then that's okay too.
No one is going to respond the same way, no one is going to need the same things. AND THAT'S OKAY.
I think of the "Never Forget" as more of a reminder. Remember when you did a post on the impatience of people about airport security? The ones griping over a few extra minutes (ok, sometimes hours)? They HAD forgotten - or at least seemed to have. People sometimes forget in their hurry to get on with their lives. They remember on 9/11...but forget on 9/12. The thing is, life changed for Americans that day whether we remember why or not. If you remember why, sometimes those changes, which suck, make more sense. It's a reminder of perspective.