Every year now, I suppose, we’re going to go through this.
My Facebook stream will be inundated with well-meaning people who want to commemorate the tragedy of 9-11. They will post graphics, sentimental posts, all kinds of hooey about where they were that day and how we should “never forget.”
Honestly, I have mixed feelings here. When the posts are about someone who was in the vicinity of one of the sites where the tragedy happened, and the remembrance is personal, I feel moved and I am glad that my friend has the capacity to share their experience. It gets a little more dicey, however, when friends who live far from where everything happened start posting quotes and graphics and admonitions about how we should “never forget.”
I can’t fucking forget, asshole. I was there. I could see the smoke rising from the Pentagon after the crash for hours. My house was less than 2 miles from the crash site. I remember frantically calling my brother and my father, who had had meetings in New York City that day, awfully close to the World Trade Center, and the sigh of relief when I heard from my dad’s assistant that they were all right. I remember walking the 10 blocks home from work that morning, packing an emergency bag, and waiting to see if I would be asked to evacuate, if the attacks on my town would continue. I fielded phone calls all day from people asking if I was okay. I remember the following morning, and every morning after for nearly a month, the Humvees posted on every other block, manned by guardsmen brandishing automatic weapons. I walked past them every day on my way to work.
Don’t admonish me as to how I should “never forget.” I can’t fucking forget. I know for you this is an Important DayTM, one that needs commemoration and quite possibly a national holiday because then we get yet another opportunity to stay home from work, have a barbecue, feed our pie holes, wave a flag and spew platitudes about the greatness of our nation. Spare me your jingoistic fervor and your national pride. People died horrible deaths. Many more people spent the day in tangible uncertainty and fear, waiting for the other shoe to drop. To turn this day into a holiday would cheapen what people suffered. I won’t be able to muster the urge to party on this day, ever. At best I will want to have a small, solemn, quiet dinner with people I love. Because I will never forget what I went through.
Even in my anger about this, I realize that others had it worse. There are thousands of people who were in the towers and in the Pentagon who barely escaped with their lives. I feel even worse for the people who lost someone that day. Someone close. For them, this is the hardest day of the year. They can't fucking forget either.
And yeah, you may have watched it on your TV and been scared too. But I am sorry. Safe in your living room in some remote rural region of the US, you had no fucking idea of what fear was on that day. You have no idea what really happened, what the sentiments of this day are or ought to be. I’m sorry. But rural America is not, nor will it ever be, a target for Islamist terrorists. Don’t presume to tell me, you who were safe at home and far from the events of the day, about how I should “never forget.”
I can’t fucking forget.
