On the brink of another 10 years, we look back at what has defined the last. The attacks of Sept. 11 left a wound that, like a battle scar, never wholly heals. The knife of loss and despair cut us deep, and every passing year the sensation returns, fresh as ever.
At this 10th anniversary, it is easy to remember a decade of political strife, war and distrust. It is easy to envision a future where these continue, where party lines, nationalities, faiths and class build ever stronger walls between us.
As students, growing up in the post-9/11 generation, we've seen a country afraid and frustrated by that fear. We've seen it consumed by a storm that started with those crashing towers and we hope will end with us. How will we carry that legacy?
We will carry it with this: Dwelling on the days before or after Sept. 11 will bring no comfort, no lesson, no easy answer. The circus of memorials and tributes all have their place in the end, to honor and to grieve, to come to terms with loss.
But it does not change the fact of what 9/11 was. A single day. A day of instant unity and caring, where questions and doubts were thrown aside in the hopes of saving the lives of one's neighbor. Our success as the post-9/11 generation should be measured not by our ability to remember the chaos and destruction, but by our ability to recognize the moment, however brief, of oneness this nation witnessed in the face of that destruction. We are called to be one people. For one day, we were just that.
E pluribus unum.
The promise of our generation: We can be that again.