Today is a day that I will always remember as long as I live because of what happened today in 2001. I will never forget being in school and hearing about and seeing the Twin Towers fall in NYC and the other airplane crashes in DC and Pennsylvania that day too. Two girls that I went to school with lost their father that day, and anyone else who lost family on that day will always remember what happened. It stays close to my memories because I do live close to NYC and I see the city from a distance in many of my weekly travels. Others who have firefighters and other first responder family members also will always remember the events because first responders from around the US came to the Northeast to help in whatever ways they could. But what about the rest of the US? Do they remember these events as personally as I do? No, of course not. Which brings us to the question I've been hearing over the past week about whether or not it's something that business owners should bring up or speak to, a question that was of course compounded by the loss of Her Majesty the Queen this past week at the very old age of 96 after a life well lived.
Why do we remember days like 9/11, as well as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday, the sinking of the Titanic, school shootings and other mass casualty events, Abraham Lincoln's birthday, and the death of the Queen? Because we're humans living with other humans and the lives of these people and the things that happened on these days touched people's lives and changed the course of history. And the day that the words of people like these and the impact that events like these don't make us stop and think is the day that we need to take a serious look at our hearts and humanity. Of course I don't want to live in a world where all we do is look at tragedy or think about the impact that tragic events have on our lives, because that's not healthy. But it's also not healthy to not feel our way through those types of emotion and to pretend that life is all sweet treats and puppies, because it's not (just look at the rollercoaster of life since 2020 began).
So why do we remember, why do we collectively honor the lives of those who have been lost or have passed on even if they don't mean a ton to us personally? Yes, because the human thing to do is to give respect to a life well lived or to honor the lives lost in tragedy, but the primary reason is because of how these people and events matter to the people who matter to us. Maybe we don't approach them with the same zest or depth that we do things like Christmas or Thanksgiving, but I think giving these people and events a little bit of thought each year is one of the best ways to stay grounded and respectful and remember that life is precious. Whose life are you remembering for one reason or another today?
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