This past weekend marked 20 years since 9/11. I’ve written before about what 9/11 was like for me. It was the beginning of college and I was asleep during most of the attack. I was woken up and told if I had family on the east coast they might all be dead. I’m very lucky that all of my family was safe, but that day marked the end of one part of my life and the start of another. I thought going to college was how I would think of my time growing up versus my time as an adult. But it was the 9/11 attacks. That marks the end of the innocence of growing up for me and so many people.
In some ways, it feels like it was a lifetime ago. In other ways, it feels like I was just learning the news and that very little time has passed. But as each year passed, it seemed like things were being remembered differently. And this year, I heard a lot of people talking about how the idea of #NeverForget has been lost in the recent past. At first, I didn’t understand it because it seemed like there was so much in the news and online about how it’s been 20 years. And then I saw someone in a video explain it in a way that really hit me.
There was so much loss on 9/11, but there were also so many acts of heroism. So many people ran into buildings to try to save others only to lose their lives. People came together to do whatever they could to help people and didn’t hesitate about it. And the passengers on Flight 93 voted and decided to do whatever it took to make sure that no other buildings were hit.
Those passengers knew through phone calls with others on the ground about what had happened in New York and DC. They knew the plane was going to be used as another target and it was suspected at the time that it would be either the White House or the Capitol. And they voted and made the decision that they would not let that happen, even if that meant crashing the plane into the ground. From what some of the phone call records say, it does look like they were hoping they would be able to land the plane. But I also think they knew that it would be difficult to land and their main goal was to protect democracy by protecting the buildings. And they made the ultimate sacrifice to do just that.
While I knew what those passengers did was heroic and that they saved so many people, I never thought about the idea of saving democracy as a part of what they did. And after this past January with such a severe attack on democracy, I wonder how many other people remember what the passengers on Flight 93 sacrificed their lives for. And that’s the exact same thing this person online said too. If we are saying to #NeverForget, shouldn’t we also remember and respect what those passengers gave their lives to save for the rest of us? Shouldn’t we think about how they did whatever it took to save other Americans and shouldn’t we honor their lives by doing the same instead of complaining about wearing masks and getting vaccines? How are we remembering and honoring them if we are not honoring what they saved?
I really never thought about it that way, but it’s so true. So many ordinary people did extraordinary things in order to preserve what we have built this country upon. They knew the power of what they were trying to save and how coming together that they could do something that seemed impossible. And right now, it feels like so many in this country are doing the opposite. And to me, that feels like we are forgetting and not remembering.
I thought a lot about this idea on the anniversary of 9/11. I thought of what we should be doing to remember the heroes and the lives lost that day. I wish that we would be acting more like how this country was acting 20 years ago when we came together and did what we had to do to protect each other. I wish that we weren’t as divided as a country right now when we know we can be unified. I wish that more people thought about how to make sure we remember what that day meant and not just what happened. I am guilty of not remembering what it meant. While I have never forgotten that day 20 years ago, I don’t know if I really remembered it either. But I made sure to do that this year and I will work hard to do that from now on.
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