9/11 - We Do Not Forget

In my mind 9/11 is firmly linked with my daughter. This picture was from the first time she was in NYC with me- a mission trip in 1993 right after she finished 6th grade. Those iconic twin towers were so photogenic and strong and even permanent. They made the lower Manhattan skyline shine with everything that NYC seems to represent. While they were never as beautiful as the Empire State and Chrysler Buildings in mid-town, they were a beautiful sight in their own right.


On 9/11/01, as I wrote about last year, she was in Spain as a junior in college. She had been there only 2 weeks. We had seen her off right from the gate at the airport. We were allowed to do that in those days. As the awful story developed on that Tuesday morning she called wanting as much information as possible. Things were falling apart, it seemed, and she needed information - and contact - with home. We realized that we were cut off from each other physically. Only cell phones, more heavily in use in Europe at that time, kept us together. We couldn't even hop a jet to get to her.


Then when she came home for Christmas the change in the world was reflected by her. She commented that the US had changed since she left. It was symbolized by all the flags everywhere, but it was felt in the anger of the American soul at what had happened. She could sense it, although she wasn't able to put it into those words. Living in Europe during those months she had seen the wonderful way many in the world gathered around the Americans, supporting them, caring for them, helping them cope.


Today we know that we blew that opportunity. The anger under the surface that she may have sensed was only too soon to explode into the Iraq war- the over-confident invasion that had little real support anywhere but in the US. Today there's not even much of that left. We have seen how anger and a desire to lash out at anyone just to feel better about ourselves actually makes us feel worse. It diminishes us. It loses any morality we may have had on our side.


Which brings me back to my daughter. The world in which she turned 21 four and a half months after 9/11 is not the one before that. It is a much more uncertain world. It is one that is more divided than we have been in a while- as a nation and in the world. Iraq is becoming her generation's Vietnam. George Bush her Johnson/Nixon. It is a world we are now passing on to her.


I wish I could do something to change it. I can't, any more than my parents and their generation could in 1968. All I can do is give her my support and love and advice. And vote next year, although that doesn't seem to offer a lot at this point.


And pray.