As I sat in my room and read the newspapers on Sept. 11, 2003, a very strange thought flashed through my head. While I viewed the pictures of commemorative events and read the stories of memorial services, I wondered, "When will September 11 be a date on the calendar? When will it slip far enough away from our minds to establish its place in our day planners and Palm Pilots?" Gregg Zoroya and Rick Hampson of USA Today were correct in their Sept. 12 article when they said, "Two years disappeared in an instant ... Sept. 11, 2003 felt like Sept. 11, 2001." Indeed, when I attended AU's brief wreath-laying ceremony and heard Amazing Grace played in tribute to those who died, the two years between the attacks and now disappeared. September 11 will always live in our hearts because of what we lost and struggle to gain. My question is when it will leave the forefront of our minds.
There came a time in history when Pearl Harbor, as devastating and shocking as it was to Americans, became not a day of profuse mourning, but a day printed on calendars and observed by most just in passing. As I read the newspapers and reflected on September 11 of this year, I wondered when September 11 would also become a day on the calendar, a day remembered but not darkened by such immediate grief. Now, I question whether we want September 11 to become such a calendar day. Everyone wants the grief to wane, but the events of September 11, 2001 also offer Americans a unique opportunity to contribute to the world, and the further the day travels from our minds, the less of an opportunity we hold in our hands.
The opportunity we now have before us is to respond to the attacks in a manner that will reflect the spirit of unity and compassion that encompassed Americans following September 11 and to honor the memories of our loved ones. Terrorists leveled the New York skyline, as they had planned, but what they did not plan was the leveling of the barriers built in our hearts and minds. The walls that allowed us to wrap ourselves in veils of egocentrism and self-absorption, the walls that allowed us to ignore the pleas for help from around the world, these walls, at least for a time, were leveled as we reached towards one another in grief and fear. For weeks, we walked around giving hugs and tissues to friends and strangers, we displayed symbols of patriotism, and we walked the extra steps to help someone in need. With such internal barriers destroyed, we had the opportunity to display our best sides- our compassion, our resilience, and our unity. Now, as we move back into our lives and our interactions, the opportunity bequeathed to us is to honor the lives and the spirits of goodness that embodied the loved ones we lost. The holes our loved ones' absences have left in our lives, similar to the hole in the financial district of Manhattan, challenge us to create goodness from the legacy of their memories. Such a challenge is great, and I am confident that our generation can live up to it.
On Sept. 11, 2002, after a candlelight vigil at the Kay Spiritual Life Center, I came home energized and enthused to be a university student at this moment in time. The students attending the vigil demonstrated to me our generation's capacity to understand the challenges facing us. At American University, we attend a school in the nation's capital, where laws and leaders are made and broken and where practically every spectrum of life claims ownership over some corner of this city. In our studies, we learn practical solutions to problems, and we live, study and breathe along with the heart of this nation. We yearn to be the generation that challenges American citizens to assess what is around them and to shape a world unified by working for the common good. We desire to be the leadership that secures the future for generations to come by slowly and steadily establishing peace and by promoting the universal values of human dignity, freedom, and equality. Because of our talent, dedication and the resources available to us, we will be that leadership.
However, if Sept. 11 fades from our conscious minds and becomes a printed line on a calendar, we will have lost the opportunity given to us. We will secure the eradication of terrorism and hatred and ensure peace and justice only by deliberately dedicating our hearts and actions towards work that will lead to a better future. Only by capitalizing on the sentiments and open-heartedness of Americans and world leaders now and by working for the future we wish we had will our generation prevent Sept. 11 from becoming simply another date marked on the calendar.
Samantha Facciolo is a junior in the School of International Service.
