Forgetting

7 years ago my life changed. On September 8, 2001, my friend Andrew committed suicide. It still seems odd to type those words, to say the phrase "suicide," and realize how much his death changed me. I found out the following Monday, September 10th, and, along with the rest of my friends, mourned him as we tried to muddle through the first Monday of school. The next day my dad followed me to school, wanting to ensure I didn't freak out or pull over to cry as I headed off to first period. Kevin & Bean on KROQ were serious for once, talking about things that made no sense, so I switched to a news station.

The news was surreal. The knowledge that my sister lived a few blocks away from the towers was in the back of my mind, but I was still overwhelmed with grief about my friend, still focused on the fact that he wouldn't be sitting next to me during our AP US test that morning. When I got to school and my dad told me he'd call if he heard something about my sister, it sunk in a bit further. But, like the rest of my friends, I was still focused on Andy's death--searching for a reason.

The AP US test was unremarkable, but about 40 minutes in my cell phone rang, loud and clear in the silent classroom. The teacher came over to yell at me as I answered and hung up.
"You can't have cell phones in school!" She hissed as she motioned to take my phone away.
"You don't understand. My sister is okay."
My teacher staggered back and whispered "Calee is in New York..."
Her words trailed off as understanding passed over her face. Suddenly, the news that she had refused to acknowledge due to our test became personal. It wasn't just nameless New Yorkers being affected, it was one of her former students.

Selfishly, I stuck with the knowledge that my sister was okay, assumed she was fine because she hadn't been struck by debris. I chose not to think about national tragedy because there was something far more concrete in my world---the first funeral for a friend, a peer. Nearly a month passed before it sunk in that thousands of people had died.

The day I found out Andy died I wrote a pithy free form poem about the loss of innocence. It is true that my friends and I lost our rose-colored glasses that day. Suddenly, being a good kid, a smart kid, an athletic kid, a ______ kid, wasn't enough to keep us safe from death. Even now it's so easy to focus on my self-centered high school self instead of on the fact that thousands of people around the country experienced a loss of innocence, the first large attack on American soil in years. People cried together, prayed together, clung together. It's what we do when things get scary.

I'm not very close to the friends I clung to during those weeks and months after Andy died. We're facebook friends, smile at each other in the grocery store, and might get together for a cup of coffee. Many Americans don't know the people they stood next to at memorials or church services in those days, but everyone who was old enough to watch the images on the screen will always have a few surrounding memories to fall back on.

A year ago, my Master Teacher spoke to her class after the school-wide moment of silence and briefly, succinctly, beautifully described why we paused to children who were in diapers when the planes crashed. She talked about how we don't need to be afraid, but it's good to remember hard things and see where we were. Thinking about the "never forget" banners posted around the city helped me remember, but also makes me wonder what people did on December 7, 1948. We remember 7 years later, for many reasons, but I can't help but wonder, at what point do we stop remembering, relegate tragedy-whether personal or national- to history and, well, move on?