If you want to remember you must not forget what you can do

   17 years, 9/11, 200, flight 93  .. The sight or mention of these numbers make many of us weep, get quiet, get sad, reflect and they are emotions not numerical.  

That day is a part of me, unwanted like a scar, I carry it as do all New Yorkers who were here.  A scar that those who lost people in the Pentagon and over Pennsylvania carry also.  Those who saw it only are touched by it but the same way that you look at anything horrifying from a distance, a small part of you guiltily glad it is not you.  

We remember where we were, what we were doing, who we were with and yet many of us do not talk of this out loud too often in such detail.  We were among the silent masses that day that walked either covered in dust, or touched by someone with it on them.  Some of us lost friends, family, co-workers.  We all lost our innocent belief - all of us, across the globe - that something like this was even remotely possible. 

Our towers fell, our Pentagon was damaged, a plane was taken down to save others.  We do not need to compare tragedies that happened before or since then - they are tragedies and which ever one you live through is equally painful and damaging. 

The narrative of anger and hate could be what those numbers mean, but it is not for me.  When I speak of this day in response to questions my children have I do not respond about the ones who did harm. I do not respond by calling the killers anything other than people who were the embodiment of evil.  Who chose to give up their lives not to make anything better but to destroy.  I tell them nothing of their names, their nationality, their ridiculous beliefs that were crafted to justify their chosen actions.  They do not deserve that.  They do not deserve to be remembered with that much detail for the harm they caused. 

I do not talk only of the falling of the towers or only of what was lost.  I honor friends who worked tirelessly to dig out the rubble and the fallen.  I speak of our friend, Vinny,  who like many firefighters chose not to go home at the end of a shift and was never able to go home again.   I say his name, the names of those selfless civil servants who since then have suffered emotionally and physically.  My boys are told of how New Yorkers, for that is where I was, behaved as they always do in times of trouble.  They lend a hand, they help one another, they are not easily knocked down even when they are knocked over.   They are imperfect and show their emotions, their humanity.  

For me those dates are also a reminder that what the terrorists did, did not do was divide us as a nation during that time.  We believed in one another.  We still do.  People did not need to shout their allegiance, they quietly put out their American flags and let them speak for the country that was hurting.  We held vigils and they were to remember those who were killed, to celebrate the lives they led.  I find it utterly ridiculous that so many who hate everything New York stands for want to use this event to create more death - we should not let them. 

This country at that moment was the America that legends about this country are built on.  There were those who wanted to use this moment for their own publicity but their loud voices were so easily drowned out by the silence of the determination the majority showed in the face of such tragedy, to be better than those who wanted to harm us. 

Hearing those numbers reminds me to be kind, to be better than the hatred those who flew those planes worshiped and believed in.  I will not forget the moment the towers fell, one of which I saw,  as well the moments where our humanity rose.  The concrete towers fell, the bright beams of light rose shortly after.  For many the pain and loss is a wound that never heals - be there for them, however, you can. 

That is how I choose to honor those lost - to be selfless like the firefighters who did what most wouldn't - they ran back in to help those who could not help themselves no matter the cost.  To be grateful for each day, because so many who went to work that day were denied the chance to enjoy any more days.  To be a New Yorker - which is to be a citizen of the world - is what those numbers mean to me.  We all chose - some of us chose to be strong, resilient, caring, giving and helpful that day, the ones who tried to destroy us chose the exact opposite.  We are still here and they are not, we always have a choice.  I choose to remember and to live and to love.