Mandatory Reading On This Day

Every year, on September 11th, I go back and read James Lileks' Bleat posts from the day before, the day of, and the days following the terrorist attacks. I do it, I guess, because it allows me a moment to remember. The word "remember", in its core meaning, is about "being mindful once again." That's what I try and do for a small moment every year: be mindful of what horrors we saw, of the heroism of our brothers and sisters, of the anger I felt that swelled to fill my entire chest and felt like bursting from my skin. In those terrible days, I didn't matter. We mattered.

Lileks' posts help me in that remembrance. They mirror my own emotions from that time, only written with a style and voice that, in the way Lileks' always does, effs the ineffable.

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And if I may, I 'd also like to recommend this column from a 9/11 widow, Debra Burlingame.

A brief quote, but please read it all:

Misremembering is as dangerous as forgetting. If we must know one thing, it is that the Sept. 11 attacks were neither a natural disaster, nor the unfortunate result of human error. 9/11 wasn't the catastrophic equivalent of a 3,000-car pileup.

Amen and amen.