Have you forgotten?

Tuesday, 4:50 pm

By Kate

Sep

11

2007

Today is the anniversary of that day, six years ago. Has anyone forgotten? Does anyone really need a memory nudge to recall those hideous pictures of planes crashing and exploding into buildings?

I know people react to things differently and I’m not discounting, for a second, the traumatic effect it has had on many. It scared the hell out of me, that’s for sure.

But.

I’m curious to see how many years will have to pass before I stop seeing “NEVER FORGET” banners popping up on blogs, in front yards, on cars, (etc. etc.) as the day approaches.

For me, seeing “NEVER FORGET” is like fingernails down a blackboard. There is some inherent hostility in the simple phrase as well as an unhealthy dose of victimhood. As if the Never Forgetters are stuck in time and can’t get past it. Or don’t want to. That might be what grates on me most—not wanting to get past it. There is something unhealthy in Never Forget. I think forgetting is quite out of the question for those of us who were sentient on that day. I’m positive that I will always remember exactly where I was and what I was doing when the towers were hit. And, certainly, the relational events of the past 6 years haven’t been lost on me, either. Why do people think we need to be reminded? What is it that they want us to NEVER FORGET? There is an entire psychology bound up in that phrase.

I think it likely that my son’s children will grow up learning that something terrible happened on September 11 and they will be tested on the date and significance in social studies classes, but it will be another date to memorize for them. Same as December 7 was for me. I was born only 12 years after December 7, 1941. My parents, who had not forgotten the day nor the terror (and believe me, December 7 knocked them sideways and readjusted their world view considerably), at least understood that time marches forward and people do forget. They thought that was healthy. They wanted to forget the rawness and the terror, yet give it its due for the importance in their lives. They never forgot the date nor the significance nor the lives lost, but they let it go and were not surprised nor upset that subsequent generations relegated the day to history. It didn’t need to be kept alive. It just was. It happened and the world went on. Many other people across the world and through time have faced their own September 11s and the world still moved on, they along with it. It is probably too soon to do that for September 11, but it will happen. As it should.