Remembrance of things past

A lot of people on Facebook are posting about 9/11.  A military friend even said it should be a national holiday.

To me, it looks like a huge portion of the nation is just... stuck.

Part of grieving is moving on.  At some point, you accept what happened and turn back to the rest of your life.  You never forget, obviously, but you also don't dwell on the incident.  You enshrine the memory by moving forward, growing and improving - not by locking yourself in amber and keeping frozen at one moment of time.

I have a friend who was a first responder.  He was helping people out of the buildings and only by luck was outside when the first one collapsed.  Today, for his sake, I hope he's off camping somewhere, with no t.v., no internet, no phone, no journalism, no well-intentioned bystanders wearing pins or waving flags.  He remembers, alright - usually at 2 am in a cold sweat.  For him, the trouble isn't remembering - it's forgetting, or if not forgetting then at least being able to accept the memory without it overwhelming him.

I wonder how many others out there in our nation have something of the same problem.  I think the number is dropping as people learn to cope and move on, but there are still thousands or tens of thousands who likely have a kind of distanced-but-real PTSD.

I think remembering may be necessary but insufficient.  I think we're on the right track, but it takes time.  So, I won't post a 9/11 statement on Facebook, but I won't argue with those who show signs of not moving in.

And I'll sit here and think about a man out there in the woods somewhere, and hope he's not remembering.