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.
