Our Hearts Feel Even Heavier Than Usual on This 9/11 Anniversary

If you lived through it, you’ll never forget it, and you’ll always look on this date on the calendar with some mix of dread, grief, anger, maybe a bit of pride, and questions of why it had to happen the way it did. Your memories are probably still as clear as if the attacks had happened yesterday. The 9/11 attacks may keep getting further into the past, but they don’t feel like distant history, and maybe they never will if you lived through it.

If you lived through it, not every American has your memories of that day. Approximately 30 percent of Americans today were not alive on September 11, 2001, so you figure about a third or so of Americans have no memory of that day. We’ll need to keep telling the younger generations about that day — what we saw, what we heard, what we felt — the terror in our hearts of witnessing so many killed in an instant, and wondering where our loved ones were at that moment. The relief of finding friends and family who were okay. The deep, encompassing grief over the fact that so many people didn’t get that relief. The sense that the world had suddenly changed, irrevocably, for the worse.

About the Author

Jim Geraghty

Jim Geraghty is the senior political correspondent of National Review.

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If you lived through it, you’ll never forget it, and you’ll always look on this date on the calendar with some mix of dread, grief, anger, maybe a bit of pride, and questions of why it had to happen the way it did. Your memories are probably still as clear as if the attacks had happened yesterday. The 9/11 attacks may keep getting further into the past, but they don’t feel like distant history, and maybe they never will if you lived through it.

If you lived through it, not every American has your memories of that day. Approximately 30 percent of Americans today were not alive on September 11, 2001, so you figure about a third or so of Americans have no memory of that day. We’ll need to keep telling the younger generations about that day — what we saw, what we heard, what we felt — the terror in our hearts of witnessing so many killed in an instant, and wondering where our loved ones were at that moment. The relief of finding friends and family who were okay. The deep, encompassing grief over the fact that so many people didn’t get that relief. The sense that the world had suddenly changed, irrevocably, for the worse.