Don't treat 9/11 like an ordinary Thursday

This Thursday, as on each Sept. 11 until our nation fades from existence, we should at precisely 8:46 a.m. pause from whatever we’re doing and silently reflect.

We should not need to be reminded why.

This is not a normal day. Thirteen years ago on this day, normal things and assumptions vanished into a brilliant blue sky. Skyscrapers and lives and a comfort once taken for granted were ripped from us, never to be replaced, only recalled. Some people ran from the confusion and danger, others toward it. All watched and watched, struggling to understand.

The date and time, right down to the hour and the minute, deserve our collective attention on this day, officially known as Patriot Day. To the world, it’s “9/11.”

Then, the calamity gave us a shared resolve and unleashed an immediate wave of caring. Now it continues to inspire a sense of allegiance and send ripples of compassion through communities far beyond Ground Zero.

If inclined to pray, do so for the victims of terror — in New York City, Greater Washington, D.C., southwestern Pennsylvania and elsewhere around the globe — and their loved ones for whom the passage of time can provide relief, even release, but not restoration.

If inclined to volunteer or extend a kindness, act on your impulse.

If inclined to visit a memorial site, go.

This annual observance, marked on calendars but seared forever in memories by burning jet fuel, is patriotic, yet entirely personal. It continues to be, more than a decade on, as it probably always will be for those who watched, painful.

This day will not — cannot — be an ordinary Thursday.

And we cannot forget why.

Even if we wanted.

©2014 The Times Leader

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