Our Children Won’t Remember

On the day this post publishes, it is the anniversary of a date our children won’t remember.

Sept. 11.

9/11.

Patriots Day.

National Day of Service.

Whatever it is titled, it will always be the day many of our lives changed forever. Not just military families or families of first responders—almost every person alive in this country on that day is different now because of those planes, those people, those circumstances.

If you are the family of a service member, that day began a new frontier of war. It took our service members away from their families and their homes to fight the enemy that so blatantly and forcibly attacked our shores. I could go on and on, and I know you probably could, too, about how that day changed your lives.

But, my children will never remember that day.

They will never know those feelings or see those images and know what was happening when they were produced. For that, I am beyond grateful. I was an adult on Sept. 11, 2001. I could not imagine the confusion and fear of my small children had they been alive on that day. I feel blessed that they will not have those memories or those images seared into their brains.

Thank God for that.

On the flip side, I wish my children could feel and know the swell of a nation in recovery.

I wish they could know our neighbors and friends the way I knew mine on that day.

I wish they could see America at its best, the day after seeing it at its worst.

I wish they could see and feel the support four country had for those who went in as the towers came crashing down, the love for our Armed Forces as they bravely went to defend this country against all enemies, foreign and domestic.

I wish my children could know the unspeakable bond formed between people during those days.

I wish they could feel so intensely the love and support for what their Daddy does as we did back then. Those feelings wane over time as our memories cloud over with more recent history.

I can still smell the candles at the vigil on my college campus that night.

I can still feel the yellow ribbons we made to show our strength.

I can still hear the low din of folks asking each other if their families were all right and if they had reached their parents by phone.

Those days following this very day 13 years ago were some of the scariest I can remember. But, they were also some of the most fulfilling.

I wish what we could continue to carry those sharp feelings of pride in a nation, dedication to serving one another, and unifying to move forward every day since that horrible day.

I wish we could remember that, as we honor those who we lost in those days, we reaffirm the good that came out of the tragedy.

That is my challenge to each of you. Be as proud to be an American today as you were 13 years ago. Be as good a neighbor and friend as you were 13 years ago. Show our children the good that those who lost their lives gave to us. Give our children memories of that. It is the best gift we can give, and it is the greatest honor we can bestow.