9/11

It should have been strange, flying yesterday. But it wasn't. I should have paused for awhile, but I didn't. I should have lingered at the hotel TV, as they showed the widows and the widowers and the sons and the daughters, reading the names of the dead. But I had to pack. I had to brush my teeth. The hotel overcharged me for phone calls, the airport shuttle was idling in the driveway outside the lobby. I listened to a few names, then turned it off. I was in a hurry. I went to the airport in Kansas City. I listened for talk of 2001, heard none. I watched as passengers sat beneath TV monitors tuned to CNN and the coverage of the 5-year anniversary. A woman did a crossword, a man read the sports page. The names were still being called. They were in the Bs.

I drove home from CVG and put Springsteen's The Rising in the car CD player. I listened to Nothing Man and You're Missing. They made me shiver, but they always do, every time I've listened to them, for the past four years. Nothing different.

If not for the obvious reminders, it has seemed almost like just another day, and I am ashamed for that. I should have lingered, I should have watched. I should have remembered. We should never be too hurried or busy or selfishly preoccupied that we can't lend a piece of our day to those that deserve it, be they the poor, the hungry, the disabled. Or those who died Sept. 11, 2001, and those they left behind. It was a day that changed us forever. I will never forget again, and tonight I will pray.