Did 9/11 Make You More Thankful, Grateful?

Okay admit it. As a whole, Americans like to whine. I’m certainly guilty of my fair share. We complain about traffic, the weather, our roommates, parents, boyfriend/girlfriends, spouses, bosses, etc…Most of us want to make more money, have more time off and travel more often.

Even though we have a national holiday already to give thanks – ie Thanksgiving – it’s becoming more apparent with each passing year, in particular this one, that 9/11 is not only a day of remembrance but one of gratitude.

As one of my friends posted on his Facebook page this morning:

“I was going to write about a little pet peeve from my day, but it is now September 11 and this day really puts things into perspective. Thank you for all my friends and God Bless the men and women who are Fighting Terrorism all over the Globe! My thoughts and prayers are for those who lost their lives that day and for their friends and families.

For all of us who are 20 and 30-somethings (and those younger and older) this is our Pearl Harbor. Just like Alan Jackson’s song “Where Were You (When The World Stopped Turning)” asks, everyone I know remembers, eight years later, what they were doing the exact moment on that September day.

I remember my boyfriend calling me from his work, telling me to wake-up that “we were under attack.” My first reaction, in a sleepy stuper, was envisioning machine gun-armed men surrounding Dallas where we lived and worked.  Still groggy from covering a late night high school sporting event the night before, my boyfriend directed me to the t.v. I turned it on dumbfounded and in shock like everyone else. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. I sat in my living room, mouth wide open in disbelief. Then my reporter instinct kicked in – run into the heat of battle instead of away from it.

The Dallas Morning News, where I worked at the time, was being evacuated and on lockdown, for fear that the main building, in the heart of downtown, could be a target.  Instead I drove to a remote bureau, like every other reporter, who began working the  phones, knocking on doors to write about the events that were unfolding before our very eyes.

The most touching of the stories, of people I personally knew, the football coach of Euless Trinity High School, Steve Lineweaver, whose  daughter was interning in Washington D.C. and was at the Pentagon. For hours, he desperately tried to reach her. The lingering minutes, hours ticked by, as he later recounted it being more difficult that anything he’d ever faced. Luckily, it ended with a joyous phone call reunion.

Since then, stories like the Washington Post’ ” We Have to Be Thankful” about 9/11 babies typifies that feeling. Still for many of us it is easy to forget. How quickly do most of us get caught up in our daily routine? Even though we say we will remember to be thankful, many of us, don’t do it often enough. My personal pact to try and improve: to think of  AT LEAST one thing I’m grateful for every night before I go to sleep. I’ve also started asking friends and relatives to say what they are thankful for on their birthday, and then have everyone else there say why they are thankful for the person whose birthday we are celebrating. It is in those ways that we remember and keep the spirit alive.

For the American flags that once dotted every home, apartment and car immediately after 9/11 have seemingly vanished from most places. The crowds of people who decided to stand for the Star-Spangled Banner at sporting events and for once, cover their heart instead of ignoring it, have withered away with time. Still every year, especially on this Friday, September 11, I think the world is a more thankful and grateful place. For this day, of all days, we seem to remember our friends, family and those who have fought for our freedoms, as well as those who have yet to come.

As New York Times’ David W. Dunlap blogged about in LENS’, Seolbin Park, the curator and director of the SB D Gallery in Manhattan, and her husband, Chang W. Lee, a Times photographer, tried to help themselves and others “heal in a post -/11 world by having other photographers to send their pictures of the twin towers before the attack.”

Touching, like so many stories that have come out in the past eight years. We can never truly repay all those who have fought for our freedoms. The heroes who rush in to rescue a stranger, even if they lose their life in the process.  We can honor that, by being grateful. Because the one beautiful thing in this whole mess, is that we are now reminded to appreciate the little things many of us once used to forget.

Give thanks and give respect, for we shall not forget.