The memories may be painful, but we must never forget

Do you remember?

Perhaps you remember how the sky looked that morning — a crystal clear blanket of blue that stretched along the entire East Coast, from Boston to Atlanta.

As you drove to work or to school, your thoughts might have been on football, or on picking up a couple of sweaters at the mall that weekend, or on any of a thousand other ordinary things.

Do you remember?

Perhaps you still recall who it was who told you to turn on the television, that an airplane had somehow flown into one of the towers of the World Trade Center in New York. A horrible, horrible accident.

The odds are pretty good that you remember how the day seemed to shift into fast forward soon after that.

Another plane had slammed into the second of the Twin Towers in New York. Still another huge jetliner had hit the Pentagon in Washington.

And then the rumors and the facts began to jumble. An explosion at the Capitol. A car bomb on the mall in D.C. The White House evacuated. Other planes reportedly headed for other targets in other cities.

But through the jumble of rumor and of misinformation, one fact was startlingly, shockingly clear — this was no accident. Our nation was under attack.

Do you remember?

Surely you remember the moment when the South Tower fell, a gleaming symbol of American power that had taken years to construct, vanishing in a few horrible seconds of desolation and collapse.

And perhaps you can still recall your realization, a bit slower in coming, that thousands of lives had also vanished amid the smoke and the ruin of that tower’s fall, a realization that was repeated like a double nightmare when the North Tower also crumbled.

Do you remember?

Did it all sink in slowly? The reality of “what is” battering relentlessly against the wall of “this can’t be happening” until reality smashed through and won out? And did reality carry with it cold, stomach-wrenching fear?

In my family, my oldest daughter was in her college dorm room at American University, just a few miles from the Pentagon. Slow, agonizing hours passed before she could reach a telephone to tell me she was OK.

Do you remember your own concerns for your own family?

Do you still recall the promises you made as that long day began to wane toward a purple September twilight?

Perhaps the promises were, whether silent or spoken, to your family. To love them more. To make them more of a priority. To give them the time and the effort that they deserve.

Perhaps the promises were to yourself. To not take those you love for granted. To cherish your life and the lives of those around you. To see each new day as the incredible gift that it is.

Perhaps the promises were to your country. To recall each day how fortunate you are to live in a land of freedom and of richness and of opportunity. To give something back in service to a nation that has given so much to you.

And perhaps your promises were to God. To seek ways to serve better. To give thanks more humbly, more often, and more freely. To reach out to those in our own communities who are hungry and who are hurting.

Do you remember?

Or has time pushed aside the memories and the fears and the hurts and the promises you made?

Tuesday, Sept. 11, 2001, was a day of tragedy. So many innocent lives lost. So many loved ones gone with no chance to say goodbye. So much hurt. So much desperate and terrible pain.

But if tragedy is to be a tool of wisdom and not merely an instrument of despair, it must be remembered. It must be remembered. And acted upon.

Do you remember?

This column was originally published in the Catawba Valley edition of The Charlotte Observer on Sept. 11, 2002.