What We Carry Forward: 25 Years Later
Twenty-five years. Twenty-five years since a Tuesday morning changed countless lives, our country, and the world forever. Seven years ago, I wrote a post about the way we remember September 11th. I wrote it from a place of frustration—frustration with the performative ways tragedy can sometimes be shared, with the endless circulation of horrific images, and with people inserting themselves into stories that were never theirs to tell. At the heart of it, though, I was trying to say something that still matters deeply to me: Remember the people. Respect the grief. Don’t make someone else’s pain about you. As we mark the 25th anniversary, I found myself returning to that post and wondering how I would write it now. The truth? I don’t think I need to rewrite it. I think I just need to sit beside it for a minute. You can read the original post here: [ Hallowed Ground ] . I’m sharing it again because the questions I was wrestling with in 2019 still matter. But I’m also sharing it ...