Remembering 9/11

Everyone remembers where they were on that fateful day, seven years ago. I was in court hearing oral arguments when we noticed both attorneys and our bailiffs suddenly begin to leave the courtroom. Finally one of the bailiff's slipped me a note (I was presiding judge at the time) to the effect that airliners had been deliberately flown into the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Northern Virginia.

We finished the case in front of us and took a recess where we began to learn the grisly details. Along with another day, November 22, 1963 when John F. Kennedy was assassinated, the details of September 11, 2001 will remain with me forever.

Amidst the tragedy, there were heartening things as well that I remember about that day and its immediate aftermath: The bravery of the passengers on United Flight 93. The way the so many police and firefighters sacrificed themselves to try to save others. The way we were united in our grief for the lives so senselessly lost. Our anger that someone would attack ordinary citizens - men, women and children -on our own soil - and in our fear that such a thing could happen again.

Seven years later, we are far removed from that unity. We should be able to disagree without being disagreeable but judging from the rancorous rhetoric currently rampant in the blogosphere and in the mainstream media, we seem to be more divided now than ever before. The things that separate us - race, age, gender, party affiliation, among them - are highlighted much more than those things that bring us together.

If only we could recapture the time when we were all just plain Americans. If there was a lesson in the atrocities of that day, it was that such a thing is still possible.

We rose above our differences once, maybe we can make that the norm rather than the exception.