Forget Me Not

Yesterday, I wrote about how annoying it is to deal with memory loss. Today, I’m thinking about how tough it is to forget.

Last night, like much of America, I watched some of the programming about one of the worst days in our country’s history. One of the shows did a minute by minute countdown of the day’s events, including graphic footage I had never seen before. (I guess filmmakers have decided that eleven years is long enough to shield us from some of the more horrific images of that day.) As I cried watching innocent victims falling from the towers, I was struck by the power of memories. Those of us who lived through that day will never forget any of it – the sight of those planes hitting the towers, the sounds of people crying, the eerie silence of an empty sky. All of it is so embedded in our memories that just the sight of the towers in an old movie can bring every emotion we felt on that day back to the surface.

Last November 22^nd, I was speaking to a co-worker about the significance of that day. She looked at me with a blank expression; she didn’t have a clue what I was talking about. Why would she? She was twenty-two years old, twelve years older than I was when President Kennedy was assassinated. That she could have no reference to a day that stood out so vividly in my memory was not surprising. It must have been the same look I had given my parents when they talked about December 7^th.

Will September 11^th ever be another day? It will be someday for somebody.