Remember

The sky is a beautiful blue today. Here and there I can see a wisp of cloud stretched out like gauze. The sun is shining, there is a bit of a breeze, and the humidity is down, keeping the 90° temperatures bearable and keeping my kids in school all day.

My kids, now there’s a thought. Today is so much like another September Tuesday that it’s really quite eerie, only I was the kid then. I was the one getting ready to head off to school that Tuesday morning, under skies that were just as blue, with clouds that were just as gauzy and sun that shone just as brightly.

That Tuesday was eleven years ago today. It’s hard to believe it’s been eleven years already. So much has changed in the intervening years, and yet so much has stayed the same. People still live and die, love and hate, laugh and cry. Sure, the ways in which these things are accomplished might be different now than they were then, but then they were different than they were in the past. People change.

When I look outside on days like today, it’s hard not to have hope for the future. This is an election year and all the political ads make me fearful of what the future will hold, not for the reasons the politicians are quick to bring up, but because of the politicians themselves. The people we are voting into office are not the sort of people I want leading my country because they refuse to cooperate with others and work together for the good of the country; they care only for themselves. But then I look outside, and the blue of the sky, the white of the clouds, the brilliant sunshine all put me at peace and it is hard not to hope.

That is what I would like to leave you all with on this day of remembrance. Hope. Remember and pray for those lost that terrible day, of course, but hope for the future, that we will leave our children a better world than this.