Honoring the heroes from 2001 and 2020.
As we remember 9/11 today, the one thing we will remember is where we were.
Like most great moments, the assassinations of MLK, JFK, or Nixon stepping off Air Force One a final time, with that defiant salute...we can all remember where we were.
The year 2020, of pandemic and protest will be one such memory for each one of us.
My grand daughter asked me yesterday, “Nana where were you during 9/11? And what were you doing? I have to know for class.”
Know this...the pandemic and protest will become a footnote in some child’s homework assignment. What will you tell them you did to honor the heroes of the moment? Doing anything to help us move our humanity forward, is better than doing nothing.
As President Obama once said,
“Even the smallest act of service, the simplest act of kindness, is a way to honor those we lost, a way to reclaim that spirit of unity that followed 9/11.”
Today that can be said of the memories of the 100,000’s we lost to Covid or those lost to police violence.Today the pandemic and the protest can bring out the best in us, if we let it. And perhaps one day when you are asked, “Where were you? It will be a proud memory to share.
And that’s a brilliant glimpse of insight.
Photo: Courtesy of Unsplash