Don't forget those who won't wake up to a beautiful Tuesday
It's supposed to be beautiful this Tuesday, Sept. 11. The forecast calls for mostly sunny skies with the temperature topping out at 67 degrees.
Most of us will wake up on that cool, sunny morning saying to ourselves, what a great day.
Except for the tens of thousands of people who were part of the family, part of the network of friends, of the 2,974 people who died on a September 11 six years ago. The sun has never shined as bright in their lives since that day when terrorists attacked us in New York City, in Washington, and in a plane that came down in a field in Pennsylvania. For them, Tuesday will be the gloomiest of many gloomy days. It will always be that way, Sept. 11 after Sept. 11 after Sept. 11.
The rest of us will know this Tuesday to be the anniversary of one of the most horrible days in our history. And there will be those among us who will do their best to pay respects, contemplate what's at stake, and even get angry all over again. But no doubt there also be those among us who will gloss over the gruesome gist of this Tuesday. Distance has deadened the horror of that day, Sept. 11, 2001. The shock has not locked in.
It's in part because it hasn't happened again. Our worst fear -- wave after wave of massive terrorist attacks on our soil -- hasn't been realized.
The burst of patriotism we felt after Sept. 11 lasted mere weeks, not years. And we never got the gratification of vindication that we received four years after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, with a victory in World War II. Since then, there has been no such great victory against the terrorists. There was the one in Afghanistan, of course. But it didn't close things out; it didn't bring the terrorists to a table on the deck of a battleship to sign documents of surrender. This terror war is never going to end that way, if it ever ends. Indeed, Osama bin Laden is still on the loose, stirring up trouble in Iraq, where the war is not going well.
We thought, too, that if we only worked harder at understanding people with different sets of beliefs, with a religious ideology different from ones we learned in our Sunday schools and temples, things would get better. They haven't.
So if we can't summon the feelings we are supposed to have this Tuesday, maybe it's not just because we are woefully insensitive. Maybe we just don't know what to do. And if we don't know what to do, how are we supposed to react? If there was a tangible set of directives to pursue that surely would lead to the annihilation of terrorism, we'd follow them. And we would deserve to be disgusted with ourselves if we didn't follow those directives with all the passion and courage that is expected of Americans in peril.
But one thing we can't do is forget the victims of Sept. 11, 2001. To do so is truly callous.
In my career in journalism, I have covered my share of horrific events. I have talked with family members who lost loved ones in war, plane crashes, industrial accidents.
In these instances, you have to keep emotions at a simmer. But when I left the home of the parents of Mark Schurmeier, the Wheaton North High School graduate who died on the 106th floor of the World Trade Center, I found myself overwhelmed with a sadness I had never felt before. I had gone to Jerry and Susan Schurmeier's home in Wheaton a year after the terrorist attacks, to invite them to write a memorial to their son, which was published in this paper.
"We all miss the thoughtfulness, exuberance and love he brought to our lives," was what Jerry Schurmeier wrote of Mark.
Tens of thousands of others feel the same way about a son, a daughter, a father, a mother, a wife, a husband lost to them on Sept. 11, 2001. They still feel the brush of their lips from that last goodbye kiss.
They will always remember them. We should never forget them.