This evening, I joined members of the College Democrats and College Republicans to place a group of flags in front of the Degenstein Campus Center in anticipation of tomorrow’s remembrance of those who died in the 9/11 attacks in 2001.
When I arrived, I mentioned that this is the first year since that sad day when almost none of our traditional-aged students were born at the time of the event. A couple of the students said they had been thinking the same thing, and they asked me a number of questions that reminded me of the kinds of questions I asked my parents and grandparents about President Kennedy’s assassination and the attack on Pearl Harbor.
My strongest memories of 9/11 are tied to the campus where I was working at the time. The day of the attacks, I arrived at the Sweet Briar College campus as the plane hit the second tower. My mother was coming to visit me on campus, but I headed home to Greensboro to be with my wife, and I left a note for my mom. She was detoured around Somerset, PA where flight 93 had crashed, and eventually joined us in North Carolina.
We spent the first day tracking down family and students in New York and DC. We were lucky as everyone we sought was eventually accounted for. After that, I returned to campus, and my colleagues and I spent the next few weeks trying to help our students and each other process what had happened.
The students planting flags today asked good questions. The one that struck me most was if it were true that people really came together in the aftermath. As we know, for a little while they did. Common causes and shared experiences have that effect.
What struck me this evening was that students from both sides of the aisle had come together with a shared purpose, good will, and a common spirit. I would like to believe that the most meaningful memorial we can make for 9/11 is a sustained collaboration lifting up We the people “lest we forget the things thine eyes have seen.”[1]
[1] Deuteronomy, 4:9