Memory, meaning and the pursuit of magic

Some numbers, we are told, are magical. Seven. Eight. Eleven. Some just distinctive. Almost anything divisible by 5, for instance.

But 24?

The number has its own meaning, but no special call to attention. And yet, today it has its purpose.

We who lived through the morning and aftermath of September 11, 2001, will never forget sharing the surreal horror of that day with our families, our friends, our communities — indeed, with all the nation and much of the whole world. For us at the newspaper, cataloging those events and the weeks after were like nothing we had ever experienced or hopefully will ever again.

So, even on an unremarkable register, the images remain sharp and meaningful. And they remind us that in the space between anniversaries of such magnitude, what matters is not simply that we remember. It is how we carry the memories forward in our daily lives.

Children born the day after the terrorist attacks have almost invariably learned about 9/11 as history rather than experience. I identify with them in the realization that this was how I, a high school freshman in 1965, absorbed the experience of Pearl Harbor, and the observation gives me a greater understanding of the quiet memories that underpinned the daily lives of my parents.

And, it emphasizes why it is so important to reflect publicly on the anniversary, whatever its number, to keep it alive for so many people for whom the event is inherited rather than lived. That reality does not diminish the significance of the day. Rather, it places a new responsibility on those of us who experienced it. Memory is not static. It must be tended, not merely for the sake of recalling tragedy, but for what the tragedy taught us about resilience, empathy and civic duty.

Twenty-four years ago, we saw fear weaponized in ways that tested our democracy and our humanity. We also saw strangers help strangers, first responders climb stairs others were fleeing and communities that knit themselves together in vigils, blood drives and gentle kindness. The lessons that remain aren’t only about vigilance against threats abroad. They’re also, and just as important, about the daily practice of decency.

We have abundant visible legacies of that day, some steeped in technologies and advances that were hardly foreseen at the time. Airport security, debates about privacy, persistent foreign wars. Just as prominent are the subtle shifts in our discourse: a tendency toward suspicion, an impatience with disagreement, a temptation to let cynicism harden into indifference.

Perhaps the most fitting way to mark an “ordinary” anniversary like 24 years is to resist that latter temptation. To remember the ideal that a strong, compassionate America is not merely the work of governments or soldiers, but of neighbors, teachers, volunteers and voters.

There is no shortage of cynicism today. With the help of social media, we increasingly retreat into political and social tribes, and we measure patriotism by partisan loyalty. But those first raw weeks 24 years ago offered a glimpse of another America: one where flags fluttered on porches without signaling division, where kindness was instinctive and where we remembered that our personal differences are not weaknesses but strengths.

Today’s observations, then, are less about spectacle than about practice. Call your grandmother. Check on a neighbor. Teach your children not just about the planes and the towers, but about the firefighters, the passengers on Flight 93, the ordinary citizens who lined up for hours to give blood they might never be asked to provide. And teach them that democracy is fragile not only in the face of terrorists, but also in the face of apathy, pessimism and rancor.

The remembrances that continue throughout the suburbs today cannot recapture the shock of that paradoxically bright September morning. But, hopefully, the events conducted and our coverage of them can help us, quietly and persistently, live out its lessons.

So, no, the number 24 does not hold the magic or distinction of some other dates, but it does carry the same mandate of them all.

Remember.

And, in doing so, let’s recommit to the unity forged in the fires of that day, even amid our disagreements. Let’s remember how palpably it taught us the importance of our families, our friendships and the entirety of our communities — and of how we treat each other, the people like us as well as those who are unlike us.

With such commitments, we build meaning from memory. And perhaps a little magic, as well.

• Jim Slusher, jslusher@dailyherald.com, is managing editor for opinion at the Daily Herald. Follow him on Facebook at www.facebook.com/jim.slusher1 and on X at @JimSlusher. His book “To Nudge The World: Conversations, community and the role of the local newspaper” is available at eckhartzpress.com.