One particular journaler that I read began today's entry with:
"You know, I didn't even notice it was September 11 until
I checked today's date to put on this journal entry. Huh."
I guess people have lives. There are bills to pay. There are kids to raise. There are illnesses and doctor's visits. There are cars that break down. There is work or, worse yet, the search for work. It all gets in the way, I guess. It occupies our conscious mind. It let's us forget about the single worst terrorist attack on American soil. Um, wait... huh?
We have disposable cameras, disposable meals, disposable electronics, disposable vehicles and disposable income. I guess we now have disposable tragedies. God help those so clueless that they don't know or have chosen to forget what today is. There simply is no excuse for not recognizing the importance of today. None.
Two years ago, thousands of people with lives, bills, families, kids, work and stuff all on their mind went to their jobs. And two years ago, those thousands of people didn't come home. That's not being dramatic, that's simply stating fact. To think that the trivialities of our own lives today are now more important than the sacrifices made by others on that day two years ago... Well, that's unacceptable.
Crazy fuckers pissed at our country came here and they killed people just like you and me. They didn't kill them one at a time... they did it in mass quantities and for all the world to see. How is it possible to forget that in just two years? It's not... Unless you don't care or don't want to remember. Neither should be an option. If you lack compassion for the loss of the good, honest, everyday people on that day... you're quite possibly evil. And for the rest of you, don't you remember how those that forget their history are doomed to repeat it?
September 11th. We can never forget. Ever.
Once upon a time, I wrote more than once entry a month. In the early days of that time, my journal was titled "A Window Into My World." The title of each entry page read, "a window into [insert date here]." I went back yesterday and looked through some old entries from those days. I wanted to pull information about what I'd done on September 10 in years past.
The entry I wanted from 2000 was titled, "a window into september 11th." Of course, when I wrote that entry... the eleventh day of September was just another square on the calendar.
The folks on television label our existence as living in a "post 9-11 world." What doesn't immediately sink in is that the label isn't temporary. Yes, we are living in a post 9-11 world... but the sad thing is that we always will.
Copyright © 2003, Thomas Fletcher. All Rights Reserved.