Twenty-Five Years Later, It Still Feels Close
Twenty-five years is a long time. It is long enough for a person to grow older, for children who were not yet born to become adults, and for an event that once seemed immediate to become part of history. Yet September 11, 2001 does not feel like history to those of us who lived through it. I still remember exactly where I was when I heard the news, who called, what I saw on television, and the words that came out of my mouth.
The morning began ordinarily. I was in the living room of my condominium in Memphis, organizing what I wanted to take to the office. My phone rang just before 8:00 a.m. Central time. It was my then girlfriend. She asked, “Where are you?” I told her I was in the living room and about to leave for the office. She said, “Turn on the TV.”
I turned it on just after the first American Airlines plane struck the North Tower. We stayed on the phone, watching our respective televisions. Then the second plane hit the South Tower. I remember exactly what I said: “We are at war!” I was mesmerized and sick. It was chaos. Before the morning was over, we would see the Pentagon attacked and learn about the fourth plane crashing near Shanksville, Pennsylvania. The ordinary day had disappeared.
A little after 9:00 a.m., I decided I needed to get to the office. Fortunately, I was in Memphis. We had people from the office who were traveling, as did many businesses. People came in shocked and uncertain. We tried to help those who were stranded find a way home. I called friends whom I knew traveled frequently to make sure they were safe. Beyond that, much of the day is a blur. There was a television in the office, and we watched in disbelief as more details emerged.
Why Some Days Stay With Us
Why do some days remain fixed in memory while others disappear? One reason is that some events change the way we see the world. Pew Research Center reported this month that 83% of American adults who were born before 2001 still remember exactly where they were or what they were doing when they heard the news of September 11. Among those who were at least 10 years old at the time, the figure is 93%. The numbers are striking because memory usually fades with time. This one has not.
For me, September 11 belongs with two other moments that remain fixed: November 22, 1963, when President John F. Kennedy was assassinated, and September 28, 1965, when I learned that my mother had died.
I was fifteen when Kennedy was killed and sitting in a dentist’s chair during a root canal procedure. I remember going home and watching the events unfold on our small black-and-white television. I was sad, but something else happened: I became more aware of the larger world and of the obligation to pay attention to it.
Two years later, at Stetson University, I was called out of class to the office of Dr. Walker, chairman of the Religion Department. I assumed he was going to tell me that my grandmother had died. Instead, he told me that my mother had died. The news shook me to my core. Until then, death had been something I knew about. That day it became personal. It was another point of maturation.
Remembering Versus Knowing
There are other days I know historically rather than personally. December 7, 1941, is one. June 6, 1944, is another. I was not present at Pearl Harbor or on the beaches of Normandy. My understanding of those days comes through books, recordings, photographs, stories and, admittedly, movies. My father was an Army engineer during World War II and helped prepare for the invasion at Normandy, later following combat troops into Europe to support logistics. I know those events mattered. But knowing is different from remembering.
What Should We Pass Along?
That distinction matters as the generations turn over. September 11 is moving from living memory into history. My older daughter, born in 1974, remembers it vividly, and we recently talked at length about our memories. My younger children, born in 1990 and 1993, were old enough to remember that something terrible happened, but they experienced it differently. For younger Americans, September 11 is increasingly something learned rather than remembered. The question for those of us who remember is what we should pass along.
We certainly remember the destruction and the nearly 3,000 people who died. But I hope we also remember what happened around the destruction: the courage of first responders and ordinary citizens, the service of members of the military, the compassion shown to strangers, and the unusual sense of shared humanity that appeared across the country. For a time, Americans seemed to remember that we were more alike than different.
I remember another part of that period, too. By my mid-fifties, it was not unusual at public gatherings for veterans to be asked to stand for recognition. I would look around at those men and women and feel a shared sense of humanity and a determination that we must do what is necessary to protect the freedoms we have in this country. That feeling has stayed with me.
Today, we have “Thank you for your service!” And a better overall attitude towards military service than when I got out in late 1974.
History Changes Ordinary Life
September 11 also changed ordinary life. Air travel changed permanently. Security became part of the experience of every flight. My younger children hardly knew what commercial air travel was like before September 11. They were eight and eleven on that day. For those of us who traveled for business, the difference was almost immediate and lasting. Security has a cost, but so does vulnerability. A free society has to think seriously about both.
Carrying Memory Forward
This anniversary also arrives in the year of America’s 250th anniversary. That coincidence makes me think about the larger role of memory in a nation. We need to remember our history – the parts that make us proud and the parts that make us uncomfortable. Forgetting the bad does not make it better. Remembering it gives us a chance not to repeat it. Remembering the good gives us something worth preserving.
So the question after twenty-five years is not simply whether we remember September 11. Most of us who were there do. The more important question is whether we have remembered what is worth carrying forward. If we have, then memory can become more than nostalgia or grief. It can become wisdom – a way of carrying the lessons of one generation into the lives of the next.
And that is part of living well and aging gratefully.
As always, be well, and age gratefully.
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