The Trouble with this Friday Is....

Nineteen years ago this Friday, the world as we know it in this country, ended for many and changed forever for the rest of us. 

I don't have to type anything beyond 9/11 because each of us has our own memories, reactions, and feelings about the day two hijacked passenger jets smashed into the World Trade Towers in Lower Manhattan leading to their collapse while another hijacked plane burrowed nose-first into the Pentagon while a struggle between the hijackers and the passengers on the fourth plane resulted in its crashing in a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania.

On that single day, 2,977 people died, and more than 6,000 others were injured in the deadliest terrorist attack in world history. It's estimated that more than 2,000 of the first responders who were in and around the World Trade Center have since died as a result of illnesses caused by exposure to dust from the site and nearly 10,000 first responders and others who were in the area that day have been diagnosed with cancer.  

So many words have been written and spoken about that day they would fill libraries and are nevertheless despite their volume and eloquence pitifully inadequate in capturing the heartache, anger, terror, sorrow, and unnamable emotions but also the resolve and solidarity not only of Americans but people all over the world felt (with us) as those events unfolded live on television and for the days, weeks and months during which they were replayed and reprised without surcease. 

I don't mention all of this, or actually, ANY of it because I think or believe there's a chance that any of us would, or could, forget, but rather to try to remember how I believe we felt as that day in September unfolded and in the weeks that followed. 

I'm trying especially hard right now when I look at who we are at this moment in our own history and wonder how we seem to have lost our way, just when the world around us needs us most. I searched for "US News Headlines on 8 September 2001" and the New York Times' summary that was returned, reads like a postcard from another planet.  

Read it for yourself and I think you'll agree that we were blithely oblivious to the blinding animus towards us that had already unleashed a tsunami of terror only hours away from nearly overwhelming us.

Almost two decades on, how are we spending our days? Battling, belittling, and badgering one another like Dr. Seuss' infamous star-bellied and plain-bellied Sneetches, with all the shades and hues of reds and blues imaginable as we fight about our perspectives rather than focus on the challenges and opportunities before us until we've created irreconcilable chasms beyond understanding or bridging, leaving us to shout ourselves hoarse rather than listen. 

But on September 11, 2001, we were One America, there for each other no matter who we were, what we believed, or who we voted for because the only way through where we were was to be one. 

That determination, resolve, and effort to understand one another after what we thought was the end of our world is what we should be honoring, remembering, and living every day. The trouble with this Friday is is the memories of our moment of unity and purpose happens only once a year.
-bill kenny