9/11

I guess the plans to mark the memory of this day four years ago have been overshadowed by the events on the Gulf Coast. Still, it's appropriate to stop whatever it is we're doing for a couple of minutes of silence to recall those many lives lost, and the horror of the event that we thought would change our lives for ever. You swore we would be prepared for the next one, didn't you, Bush. Yet, sadly, we proved ourselves as unprepared as ever when the next blow came--this time not from terrorists, and not even by surprise, but from a storm that had been predicted, first, for years, and then for several actual days before it hit.

No recriminations, though, today. Just a great deal of sadness for those we've lost. I have always recoiled at the name we've given that day. "9/11" seems, well, so perfunctory for a day that marks so great a tragedy. I link it in my mind to that other numerical abbreviation that I loathe, 24/7--a concept that seems to me utterly lacking in humanity. Will we soon be referring to Christmas Day as 12/25? Or New Year's Day as 1/1? I suppose it's too late, now that the nomenclature has slipped into the language, to find something more dignified for this day? We managed once to find the words for Labor Day and Memorial Day. Perhaps one day we'll find some way to memorialize 9/11 with a name that befits its gravity.