On remembering.

Humans are wonderful at remembering, and also wonderful at forgetting. We are blessed with very interesting minds that allow us to revisit past events, but not so much memory that we get overwhelmed with thoughts, feelings, and a running play-by-play of the past. How we remember is through stories, through our thoughts, through sharing, and through memorials.

I want to take this weekend to remember 9/11/2001, to cherish and respect and pay honor to all of the wonderful Americans (and visiting internationals) who have made our country such a wonderful, blessed place. To all of those who died or lost a loved one on 9/11/2001: prayers and memories. To all of the fallen Americans, soldiers, and veterens of past and current wars: my unending thanks to you for keeping my country a safer place, for letting me enjoy my family and friends, for sharing with me such a rich diversity of people, and for an inordinate amount of wealth that I, upon being born, did nothing to deserve.

We do not forget the past, but we do not live in it, either. Nine years later, the memory of 9/11 is fresh for some of us, blurry for others, and continually being revisited and rebuilt, in plans and drawings and politic about the new buildings, churches, mosques, and/or other programs that will occupy the post World Trade Center site. How we proceed is still being determined, but the memory of 9/11 will live on beyond our lifetimes.

I am grateful, thankful, and honored to be an American. America, you may sometimes make blunders, but I still love, respect, and pay tribute to you. And I am eternally grateful to be living in such a wonderful world, place, and country.

The photos below are from a recent trip (2009) to Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, from the USS Arizona Memorial.