Remembrance

In 53 minutes it will be the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of the year.

In the US, it doesn't mean much. Just another minute in another day. In the UK, it's different. Businesses stop and the country is quiet for 60 seconds as Britons take a moment to remember the fallen soldiers.

It's powerful. In the weeks leading up to today paper poppies pop up on lapels around nation-- a throw back to the days when wounded Great War veterans sold actual poppies in the Tube. It's startling, a stark reminder of those who've given their lives for their country.

I spent September 11, 2002 preparing to move to London. I was shocked that day, and have been shocked in years since, by the lack of co-ordinated commemoration in the US. We're a hot mess-- all over the place with moments of silence here and totally forgetting to do anything there. It's as though we don't care. You know the knock knock joke:

Knock knock
who's there?
September 11
September 11 who?
You said you'd never forget!

I'm not much of a "dulce et decorum est pro patria mori" kinda girl, my sentiments run more towards the "what if they gave a war and no one came"? Perhaps it's my Philadelphia upbringing and the Quaker influence, perhaps it's the fact that I grew up with Boomer parents who protested Vietnam, opposed Desert Storm and that I was against both of our current wars. Perhaps it's just who I am.

Still, I can't get over the solemnity and magnitude of an entire country stopping for 1 minute to honor the dead. The gravitas I felt cannot be over stated. A public acknowledgement of a shared trauma. It's important.