9/11: Anniversary forever calls to mind what changed, what endures

Victims continue to be added to the list.

War. Cancer. Post-traumatic stress.

The events of the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, claimed more lives in one fell swoop than any other terror event in history, prior to or since.

And while those numbers rattle off, morbidly committed to memory like some arbitrary historical fact we might have picked up in school -- 343 firefighters, 61 law enforcement personnel, eight medical first responders -- the true death toll continues to grow annually.

On particularly bad days, the number swells by several when multiple U.S. service members fall in an attack or in a training accident somewhere around the world where the War on Terror continues to be waged.

It must be difficult for someone born after that day to truly understand how different the world is today versus Sept. 10, 2001, and before. Things we took for granted were irrevocably changed, none more so than the fact that terrorist attacks playing out on our television sets in cities around the world used to be viewed as events outside the realm of what we considered normalcy.

Today the opposite is true.

As we take a moment -- or for some of us, a few -- to remember anyone we knew or loved who died that day or has since in the aftermath of 9/11, let us try to remember what good came out of it. If there is to be any consolation for the loss of life or the losses to our way of life, let it be that we learned then and have demonstrated a few times since that Americans do rally in times of darkness, that we can and do work together through crises, that we can heal when divisions outside of those we've created for ourselves come to threaten our collective stability as a people.

We fight amongst ourselves as all families do, but despite our inner struggles, scars and closeted skeletons, we remain a unified house against any external force, and our foundation -- though pockmarked and surface-cracked -- remains solid.

If you see a military member or first responder today, don't thank them for their service, thank them for their sacrifices. They've made many. And hold in your heart and mind a private thought for those who made the costliest sacrifice 16 years ago that one less person, or perhaps a few, were added that fateful list.

Published in Editorials on September 10, 2017 9:29 PM