Collective Memories

15 years ago, the lives of almost 3,000 Americans were lost because of coordinated terror attacks. We could not have anticipated or prepared for such a horrific event; we could only respond with shock, with anger, with sadness, with fear, and ultimately, with distrust.

I don’t know if everyone remembers where they were that day. I remember. I had just dropped off my 20 month old at daycare. I was pregnant with child number two, my child who was born after 9/11. I went to Target, trying to get my errands finished early so I could go home and rest before I needed to pick up my daughter. Target was quiet, unusually quiet, even for an early morning. I walked around, throwing the items on my list into my cart. No one spoke to each other, as if we were all observing a moment of silence but we didn’t know why. I only knew that a plane crashed into one of the towers. I didn’t know that it was on purpose, or the first of four planes diverted.

I drove home and sat on the couch in front of the television. I flipped between several television channels for hours, watching the planes hit the towers, over and over again. I felt numb and alone, except for the child I was carrying, a child who would be born into a very different America than the one I knew as a child.

As we mourned the many losses we suffered that day, we became a different country. We gladly gave up a bit of personal freedom in the name of public safety. We were encouraged to turn in neighbors, to report suspicious behaviors. Our government patched together a plan, a reactive solution, and we reminded ourselves to never forget.

We reacted more, by removing shoes and nail clippers and shampoo bottles at the airport. We invaded countries that ultimately suffered worse at our hands than by their own. We demonized an entire religion based on a small percentage of evil people, and we turned fear into an American value.

What we did forget, in our goal of never forgetting, is what being free felt like. We lost our sense of hope and trust in other people. Our response as a nation centered on protecting ourselves from ever experiencing such terror again, yet we live with our own fear on a daily basis. I don’t know about you, but I am more frightened of the divisiveness and anger that has torn us apart than the possibility of another major violent attack.

Some other things we should never forget are other sad moments in our history. McCarthyism and the Red Scare. Japanese internment camps. Slavery. The Trail of Tears. We are not above committing some pretty heinous acts against each other as a country. How did we as a nation overcome them before? Where are those history lessons?

I don’t want to make America great again. I don’t know what that means. What I want is to feel safe and hopeful. I want my children to grow up without having active shooter drills at school or knowing where the closest exit is in the movie theater. I want us not to spend hours at the airport because we all have to take off our shoes, unless we want to pay more money for the privilege of keeping them on while skipping ahead in line. I want us to respect our police officers, but I also want them to rebuild community relationships. I want our leaders to be problem solvers, not finger pointers. I want us to all take a good, long look at our Constitution, not just the 2^nd amendment or part of the 1^st, and try to live by what we use as our guiding principles.

I want us all to do better, to be better people, to raise better children. Better isn’t about winning or making money; it’s about supporting one another, about showing kindness, about learning to trust, about listening instead of speaking, about thinking before acting. Better is when we all move ahead, instead of stepping on the backs of others to jockey for position. Is it a race, a contest, a journey? We all end up in the same place eventually, and I for one am not in a hurry to get there.

It is okay not to agree on everything. It is perfectly fine to discuss different ideas and not have a solution. It is one of the rights that we should exercise regularly.

I don’t know if the terrorists did this to us, or we did this to ourselves. We turned against each other. We suspended some of our core beliefs as a nation, and I don’t think we will ever be the same.

I know good people who do good things for others, and I cling to these examples to find my hope for the future. I try to teach my children to look for the good, and if they don’t see it, to be the good that other people see. I don’t know if that is enough to make a difference, but I like to think it is more effective than removing my shoes at the airport.