We Forgot

We Forgot

I am going to ask for your indulgence today, and your forgiveness. However if you look at the title of this blog and its date you can likely extrapolate my meaning.

We have a saying in America, a very young saying, as sayings are aged, “I miss nine-twelve.”

September 11th was a tragic moment in U.S. history that kicked off a great deal of change and pain the world over.

That’s not what we mean.

In the shadow of that tragedy, when the trauma was raw and our need for comfort greatest we did the most human thing of all. We pulled together.

Let me not deceive you into thinking we became a perfect people without vice or malice, nor let me ignore the people in my homeland that were abused and attacked for the actions of others.

We were not a perfect people. But we were a better people.

This isn’t unique to this tragedy, of course. There are always those who will see a tragedy as an opportunity to do what’s best for others. As Mr. Rogers said, “look for the helpers.”

And for a time so many, many of us were the helpers.

And then time passed.

Grief turned to anger.

Love turned to apathy.

And the help simply dried up.

I don’t want more tragedy, more grief, more pain. I don’t want a world dragged through more violence.

I do want us to remember how easy it was for us to be better. Not just to remember THAT people were giving their all to help but that WE were those people and we can be again. Nothing is stopping us.

Nothing but us.

I may be talking more to myself than to any of you with this one, please forgive the indulgence but as far as we are from the events of that day, we are also, so very close and the repercussions of it still echo about the world.

Wake's are so we can experience the grief of a passing and heal. I feel like in the wake of our tragedy America forgot that. It forgot to heal.

I hope, whoever you are and whatever tragedies befall you, you do not forget that. Don’t forget to heal, it’s the only positive thing we can take from a tragedy.

Thank you my dear readers for indulging me. I wish you all the best, god bless;

~S. Wallace