Eight years later, I’m still angry. Decent Americans, going about their business–going to work on a gorgeous Indian summer day got the shock of their lives. Buildings crashed down around them and nothing would be the same.

A new friend in Texas moved from the New York a couple years ago, finally. She worked in the Twin Towers and happened to be late for work. She just couldn’t get over it. She still shakes.

My sister’s friend best friend completely lost it. He worked for a business in the Towers and came undone. He quit working. Now, his friend, who also worked in the Towers has managed to cope and move on and live.

And then there are those, like HotAir’s Allahpundit who lived through it. I’m not sure he knew what he was doing when he started, but it’s the first time I’ve ever seen it on Twitter. Allah remembered from beginning to end his experience of 9/11. It is so moving, I decided to screen capture it all and save it for posterity. Please go read it all.

Eight years later, I still sob watching this:

Flashes of memories stay with me. In 2007, I asked, “Would it kill the Left to cry just a little?” Bookworm says:

The current administration seems bound and determined to forget 9/11. To this end, it grovels before those who wish to kill us, disarms those who wish to protect us (our military, our CIA), frees those who have raised their hands against us, and tries to turn 9/11 into a socialist worker’s holiday. That may be the current administration, but that’s not me. I will never forget those who died that day, nor will I ever forgive either the people or the ideology that gave rise to the attack. With the government as it is now, we must, more vigilantly than ever before, remember that we are vulnerable if we let our guard down.

The only thing to do is to continue to fight and to rid the earth of this human plague. An immune system kills every cancer cell, and when they get too many, the whole body is overwhelmed. So we must continue to fight and defend, ever vigilant. We must also live. The body doesn’t stop to fight. It fights and lives.

America must continue to fight and live. That’s the only way for our beloved culture and country and people to survive.

UPDATED:

The Anchoress feels ambivalent, it seems. Every year, I take the day and mourn. It is a circumscribed mourning.

When my son died, for years I felt a diffuse pain that never left. And even now, there’s a naggy ache that is always just on the edge of my experience twelve years later. At a certain point, though, to survive, the mourning had to be more enclosed. For too long, it seeped into all parts of my life and was everywhere. It was depression–a helpless pain that invaded my whole being. The solution was to make it more intense but less diffuse. And so, on the anniversary of his death, I mourn.

The same goes for 9/11. The horror of it all was everywhere for a long time. But life cannot be lead feeling paralyzed with grief and fear. And so, each 9/11, I watch a video like I linked to here and I sob. And I don’t do it in a forced way. There has yet to be an anniversary of this event that doesn’t touch me somewhere deep. I feel the wound on America’s soul as my own. I feel the violation of America’s cheery, optimistic openness as a personal assault.

Like the rapist waiting in the dark ally for the first happy woman to walk by, or the thieves sneaking into someone’s house they envy, or the serial killing murderer blinded by hate and sadism, the terrorists spent time plotting against America. They want us to feel pain and hoped the pain would have been greater. They hated life so much they were willing to take their own in order to steal the joy of others. They were and are evil. There are those plotting against us this moment. And they would take delight in repeating, or exceeding, the destruction of 9/11.

And even still, America has returned to her optimistic self. Of course, there are more banal foes–the economic cycle expands and contracts and that can cause pain, too. And right now, the pain of being out of work and trying desperately to keep a home or feed a family outweighs a theoretical threat. The threat still exists. But people move on to more pressing problems.

Remembering for a day, though, honors the lost. It honors our own personal loss. America after 9/11 just isn’t the same. How can it be? Pretending otherwise is nonsense, psychobabble b.s.

The worst thing for the victim of a crime is to pretend it didn’t happen. To be told, “you should be over this by now” or worse, “it really didn’t happen that way.” Maybe that’s why I’m not interested in a national day of service. Not on this day. Sure, it’s important to use the negative energy and harness it and use if for good, but that can be done tomorrow. And the next day.

Today, we remember.

Michelle Malkin says,”Remembrance is worthless without resolve. Resolve is useless without action.”

She also reminds us that there is only two ways to go, because the enemy will only accept this outcome: Lan astaslem which is Arabic for “I will not submit.” I won’t submit. Today, I take the opportunity to remember that and remind the enemy, too.

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