Balancing memory and future

---by Micheal

On this sixth anniversary of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, we're approaching a post-tragedy turning point. Most people don't live in their grief forever. Some take an unhealthy turn, becoming absorbed by the grief. The tragedy defines them, becomes them.

I know a couple of divorced women. They talk about their divorced situations a lot, and about their ex-husbands more than any other person in their lives. Divorce defines them. Years ago, I worked with a young jewish guy for whom the Holocaust was THE defining moment. To be a Jew, for him, was to be a victim, even though he was two generations too young for that. Never mind about being God's chosen people. Holocaust was all. Similarly, there are Afro-Americans who still see themselves primarily as former slaves.

It's just not healthy to surrender your future -- to define yourself by a past event. I wondered if America (collectively) was going to become the perpetual terrorist sufferer. America: Land of the victim.

Happily, it doesn't seem so. This year, we're past that psychologically weightier 5th anniversary mark. People seem ready to look towards the future. They're not forgetting, like a toddler with a short attention span, but they're not wallowing in it either.

America has been subtly changed by the event. We're not simply lapsing back into exactly what we were on September 10th 2001. Terror attacks have become accepted as a perpetual possibility. We've moved beyond the jittery Chicken Little phase. Even that silly publicity stunt gone awry in Boston last year showed that we've determined to go on working, building, producing rather than run screaming.

If this 6th anniversary of 9/11 seems less intense, it's not that we're forgetting. We're getting stronger.