Remembering and Moving On

"Where were you when the world stopped turning on that September day?"

Lines from a song by Alan Jackson. A question every American who was alive on September 11, 2001 can answer.

I was thirteen years old. My family had returned home the day before from a two-week trip out west. Usually, I woke up around 7 a.m. and turned on the news. That morning, I did not. I was outside playing with my sister when my mom came to the back door and called us back inside, saying, "Terrorists are bombing New York City!".

Confusion. Images of B-17 bombers flying overhead and dropping bombs on shipping ports and train tracks came to my mind; a mind whose only experience with war came from black and white films made during World War II some sixty years prior.

We turned on the television and watched the towers crumble. In the age of technology, you don't hear about tragedy days later in the newspaper, or even a few hours later on the radio. You can be thousands of miles away and with the click of a button, it arrives right in your living room in full color and sound.

It was the day I realized life was not safe like I had believed it to be. It could end in a moment. From my thirteen-year-old perspective, mass casualties occurred in other countries; those countries I heard about on the news that were constantly war-torn, famine-stricken, and all-around unstable.

It couldn't happen in my country.

But it did.

It felt like the world should stop. As if there should be a sign, a vision, something huge to freeze everything in still frame, like a photograph--a glossy, non-threatening, detached photograph.

The world kept turning. People were in shock, to be certain, but the world kept turning. The sun continued to rise and set, people went to work, babies were born, people died from other non-9/11-related reasons, holidays were celebrated, minutes ticked by into years, and life moved on.

I know many children who were born after that day. They have no personal remembrance. They can watch the videos of the planes hitting the towers and Pentagon, and see the images of the scorched, gashed earth in that Pennsylvania field, but there cannot be a connection because they were not alive at the time of the event. The same goes for me and the attack on Pearl Harbor. I have watched the footage, looked at the pictures, and listened to the firsthand accounts. I love to study World War II history; but, that's all it will ever be to me--history. A black and white photograph. A time that is not tangible to me in any way because I was not there.

In the moment, it seems as if nothing will ever be right again. 3,000 people died. Normal life for the people who knew them before their deaths ended that sunny September morning, as it does anytime a person dies. Life can never be the same again because that person, that unique soul, is never coming back. Those left behind will move on, but the old normal will be replaced with a new normal. I did not lose any family members or friends in the attack. Any connection I have with those who died comes from a book called Portraits: 9/11/01 compiled by the New York Times. Within its 684 pages are the names and two-paragraph summaries of each innocent life that ended in the towers, Pentagon, and planes.

Names like Robert Hayes, a husband and father of two who loved to surf; firefighter Jeffrey J. Olsen, a man described by his mother as, "having the gift of peace"; Naomi Solomon, a woman who had more friends than you can imagine; Maria Isabel Ramirez, an animal lover who was always rescuing stray cats and dogs; Domenick Mircovich, a husband and father of three who had a tradition of a group hug with his family every night when he returned home from work; and the list goes on and on and on.

At 13, I learned that time is precious and will eventually end. We may not go out in a terrorist attack, but our lives here on earth will certainly be extinguished at some point.

We must learn to strike a balance between remembering and moving on.

Time.

Slow-moving, yet faster than light.

Elusive.

Solid ground, or so it seems.

A vapor.

Black and white.

Lots of gray.

Lasts forever.

Ends in a breath.

What are we doing with the time we have been granted?