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Rekindling our 9/11 spirit of unity

So many people turned up at a suburban LifeSource blood donation center that the line was six hours long.

Seeing the throng, a restaurant sent sandwiches.

Volunteers flocked to O’Hare International Airport to offer everything from food to free mental health services to thousands of people stranded far from home, their flights grounded for days.

Batavia High School students asked their principal if they could start a routine of saying the Pledge of Allegiance together.

Everyone flew flags.

Naperville opened its arms to the families of seven missing men of New York’s Ladder Co. 101, sending, among other things, handmade quilts.

Strangers consoled one another.

United in shock and sorrow after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, we in America moved almost as one in our desire to help victims, comfort rescuers, grieve together and defy the attack against our nation.

We were our strength.

A decade later, that spirit seems in sharp contrast to today’s national mood of frustration and overload from years of war and a deep recession. Politics has devolved into disrespectful name-calling and untruths. Searching for solutions to the problems of our day, we are deeply divided.

Such a shift is not unprecedented or unexpected, of course.

It’s natural that the enormity of events like Sept. 11 wipes away the pettiness and squabbles of everyday life. It’s also natural that everyday life reasserts itself.

In remembering that 9/11 legacy, can we rekindle it?

Lamented a LifeSource manager fearful that their post-9/11 bounty would be followed by a blood shortage: “Our efforts are only as good as those who care, even when there is no apparent crisis.

At our core, it’s likely we have not changed at all in the passing decade. Here at the Daily Herald, we see almost daily evidence of the compassion of strangers stepping forward to help those left needy and full of grief by tragedy or other circumstances.

Marking this anniversary of 9/11 memorializes all of those who lost their lives, but also gives us a chance to reflect on what we have learned, and to learn from it again:

We’re more alike than different. We’re stronger when we pull together. We can moderate our disagreements by acknowledging our common ground.

Those are more than just platitudes. They are truths we discovered a decade ago.

That’s something to remember on this weekend’s 9/11 anniversary, and beyond.