Never Forget

I am sure there are some out there who will say, "Oh no, not another 9/11 post." But, I think that just stands in testimony of the fact that Americans as a whole have forgotten that horrible day and how it changed our lives forever. The fact that we have forgotten was perfectly realized to me when I asked my students last year to write a short essay on what they remember about that day and how it changed life for Americans. I got the essays home that night to read and grade them and I got responses like "I do not remember anything except my kindergarten teacher cried all day" or "I lost a tooth that day." Then, it struck me: the generation that actually lived through that day and had vivid memories of it had failed to pass on that history to the ones who are coming up behind us. As a teacher, I found myself teaching a lesson about that day to my students. Some of them had never heard all the details about that day. It just floored me. Now, I understood why my dad could talk about the moon landing with such emotion and I always looked at it with a kind of "ho-hum, I read this in my history book" attitude. My kids and those who will come after them will always look at it with that kind of attitude. Hopefully those of us who remember the terror, the pain, the suffering, the emotion of that day will never forget and will never allow those who will come later to forget.