Tolerate This Topic, If For Just a Moment

Am I the only one who cringes as we approach the "anniversary of 9/11?"

It's not that I don't want to honor those who lost their lives on 9/11.

I'm just tired of the poorly trained pundits, the publicity-seeking pastors and the pontificating politicians.

To them, I'd like to say, "shut the *(&$ up."

For me, 9/11 is a memory I'd like to erase, but know I shouldn't.

That gorgeous boy in the picture? He is my first-born, and he was just a three-month-old fetus when those planes went into the towers. He and I were just blocks away that Tuesday morning.

My trip had been a poor one already. My flight had been delayed, and when I stepped out of my cab in front my hotel in Midtown near midnight on Monday, September 10th, I stepped into a puddle of puke.

Not the welcome to New York I was used to. (I heart NYC.)

Skip to late morning on Tuesday, after we realized just how serious things were, when we all really thought the world was coming to an end. When I really, in my heart of hearts, thought I'd never see my family again. When I holed up in my hotel room, alone. My asthma kept me indoors and out of the smoke and soot in the air, and my pregnancy kept me away from the bars.

As terrible as all this was, something awesome was happening. Do you remember?

People gave blood. People met their neighbors. People helped strangers. People stopped at stop signs and let the other guy go first. People were nice. People came together. Not against something evil. People came together, united, to help one another. People realized the greatest thing they had was their humanity, and that all that mattered was how they treated the person next to them.

Today. Oy. Today. We've got people wanting to burn the Koran. We've got otherwise-reasonable-people defending one's right to burn a holy book. Seriously, when did "... but he did it first" become an appropriate defense past the age of 5?

We've got people using a terrible day in our country's history as a reason to be unreasonable.

The media forces us to remember 9/11; could we instead remember 9/12? When the world, not just the ol' USA, was united ... when religions and races and ideologies and generations stopped thinking about what made us different but what made us the same?

Because I love that little guy in the picture, and I'm quite certain that someone thinking that burning the Koran is a good idea loves his or her child just as much.

And I want that 9/12/01 world back.