Remembering...

The longer one lives, the longer the dates-I'll-never-forget list becomes--weddings, births, deaths, wars, etc.  If a few years older, I could probably describe the country's reaction to the bombing of Pearl Harbor--nearly 72 years later.  But my first memory of national tragedy is the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.  He ran in the first election in which I could vote.  

November 22, 1963, I was working at the "old" Medford High School, and as I walked past a secretary's desk she said, "President Kennedy has been shot".  Of course no one wants to believe such news, so within minutes many of us huddled around the radio in her office.  

For the next several days, the entire world watched the flight back to Washington DC with the president's body, the pictures of Jacqueline Kennedy in her blood-stained suit, the killing of Oswald, and the funeral--always with the desire to wake up and realize this was a dreadful nightmare.  Even recalling it all these years later my eyes are moist.

Tragedy with the loss of children is the most unthinkable of all.  But we've watched time and again the stories unfold of mentally ill and angry individuals who, for whatever rationale their minds conjured up, took their pain out on the innocent young.

And now today, we memorialize 9-11.  And we remember with clarity so precise it only makes the pain greater.  

I have heard people suggest that we should forget the Holocaust--it was a long time ago we should get past it.  But will any of us forget how we connected with family members and hugged our children when we heard the news of 9-11 or school or mall shootings.  While it's true, it is important to get past the shock and grief that leaves us immobile, we must never forget the loss.  We build from loss and pain to make a better tomorrow.  

May the lessons from these tragedies, and the memorials provided, enable us to see beyond violence--and find peace.