25 years ago.
Two years longer than I’ve been married – and somehow it still doesn’t feel possible that it was that long ago. In so in many ways, it feels like I’ve been married for almost my entire life. And yet, when I think back to September 11, 2001, I can still remember so many details with surprising clarity. How is it possible to remember a single day from 25 years ago so vividly?
Briggs had to interview someone for his social studies class who was alive on September 11, 2001 and could remember the events of that day. He asked Steve first, but although Steve was certainly alive, he was out of the country serving his mission and didn’t have a lot of firsthand details to share. So I was Briggs’ second choice!
It ended up being a meaningful exercise for me. As Briggs asked his questions, memories I haven’t thought about in years came rushing back – where I was, what I remember seeing and hearing and the strange feeling of watching history unfold in real time without fully understanding how it would impact me. I realized there are so many little details from that day that have simply been tucked away in the back of my mind for 25 years.
Tonight, we went to the Tempe Healing Garden for our annual visit to pay our respects to the thousands of people who lost their lives that day. It has become a tradition for our family, and I love that our kids have grown up understanding that September 11 isn’t just a date in a history book. It was a real day, filled with real people, real families, and real stories.
But this year felt a little different.
We visited the 9/11 Memorial & Museum in New York this summer, and our kids experienced the events of September 11 through the museum’s immersive displays. They heard the stories, saw the photographs and artifacts, and began to understand the scale of what happened in a way that is difficult to convey simply by telling them about it and visiting the flag display every year.
I don’t think you can ever look at September 11 quite the same way after visiting that museum.
On our way home tonight, one of the boys started asking some deeper questions. “Why do we honor this day more than events like the Holocaust, when it took so many more lives?”
It was a completely valid question and one that led to a deeper conversation. We talked about how we don’t need to compare tragedies or measure one loss of life against another in order to honor them. But we also talked about what it means to be attacked on your own soil and the vulnerability that comes with that and how infrequent that has been in our country’s history.
Standing at the Healing Garden tonight, I found myself thinking about how strange it is to carry memories of an event that our children only know as history. For us, it is something we remember. For them, it is something they have to learn. And helping them understand why it’s neccesary that they learn it. I think it’s important to continue to tell those stories and remember the lives that were lost – and also celebrate the patriotism that came in the aftermath.
