10 years

Apologies for the double post and please do read the post that I just made before this one, it is quite good and interesting.

I cannot believe it has been 10 years since 9/11. I remember everything about that day and where I was with perfect clarity. I remember my younger self being unable to comprehend the meaning of the situation and asking my mother "Why is it such a terrible thing?". I have seen and remember the ripples of shock that have echoed endlessly throughout our society and I remember people at their worst and people at their best. Before I get on a political rant allow me to say that I remember it all.

And yet something that I saw and heard the other day really sums it up the best:

The buses in Pittsburgh have a panel at their front that states which route is coming. The P1, the 14 Ohio Valley, the 18 Manchester etc. Now alternately flashing with the route number and name is: 9/11/01 Never Forget. Again, I don't want to get on a political rant about blind patriotism and such but I find this absurd. But that has nothing to do with the story. Anyway, I saw a young girl with her mother on one of my last days in Pittsburgh while I was waiting for that damn 14 Ohio Valley to take me to the casino. She said to her mother, "What is 9/11/01?"

And that is it. Such an innocent question from an innocent girl; and she cannot possibly comprehend the magnitude of that question, the pain of a nation struggling with itself as it reels from a destructive and deadly attack, of wars mismanaged, of lies told and of lives thrown away. Time truly does heal all wounds. Such a raw visceral image will fade in the coming generations, maybe not quite the same way as images have in the past due to things like the internet and memory storage, but they will fade all the same.