The importance of September 12

 

Yesterday was a somber one for all of us. When September 11 rolls around, images shoved to the back of our minds swim to the surface again, bringing with them the horror that is beyond imagining, a horror that made daily life grind to a halt, a horror that most of us couldn’t really wrap out minds around. People posted what they were doing when they heard the news of the attack on the Twin Towers—from traveling abroad to sitting in a classroom. I was, no surprise, at home at my computer.

It reminded me of the reaction for years to the assassination of JFK. People recalled where they were, what they were doing when those shots rang out and the news first broke. I was listening to my car radio on the main street of a small Missouri town and wondered why those news guys couldn’t get anything right. And then they got it right. It’s hard for me to believe that a whole huge segment of our population, including my four children, were not yet born by November 1963. But they will remember September 11, 2001.

I read a post yesterday by someone who said he wanted to go back to September 12, 2001. Not to relive the horror but to recapture the unity of America on that day. Led by George W. Bush, who was not my choice for president, we came together to grieve and mourn but also to declare our faith in the American way, in the survival of democracy. (That I didn’t agree with Bush’s later retaliatory actions is another matter.) We will all remember Bush, with his megaphone, at the site of the destruction.

What we got yesterday in leadership was a president who sat with his arms folded in a belligerent, bored pose during the reading of names of the victims who died at Shanksville; he didn’t seem to know the words to the Pledge of Allegiance when it was recited. In stark contrast to all political candidates since 2004, he did not pull his campaign ads for the day. Joe Biden told reporters they wouldn’t get anything from him yesterday—it was a day to honor the dead and not to campaign. He pulled his ads.

Today’s America, as many bemoaned yesterday, is far different than it was in 2001. We are a nation almost brought to our knees by a pandemic that has killed 200,000 of our family, friends, and neighbors,  economic depression worse than the Great Depression of the 1930s, terrorists who turn peaceful protests in our cities into riots, and wildfires that seem to consume the western third of the nation. I wrote “almost to our knees” deliberately because I think we can still save America from those who lie to us, who put greed above human life, who are power hungry. We are too strong as a nation. It’s scary to be overly optimistic, but I have faith.

We bumped into another hardship of quarantine last night. My friend Jean came for happy hour—a delightful pleasant evening on the patio. Jean had had a down day, as many of us had, and we worked to cheer each other. As she always does, she said, “Just kick me out when you’re ready to cook dinner.” As it was, we didn’t have supper until eight-thirty, but that was another story and not all Jean’s doing. Later Jordan and I talked about it because our natural instinct is to say, “Oh, stay and eat supper with us. There’s plenty.” (There is always plenty!) But quarantine gets in the way. We haven’t invited anyone into the cottage since last March. With cooler weather coming, the patio will lose some of its appeal, and we’ll have to rethink that.

Having mourned once again yesterday, I think today is the time to recapture the spirit of September 12, a spirit of moving forward in strength, not one of defeat or anger or retaliation. I’ve been accused of always walking on the sunny side of the street, and I guess it’s true. Just call me Pollyanna.