On Sept. 11, 2002, one year after the devastating attacks on the World Trade Centers, the Pentagon and other places around the United States, memorials were organized across the country. The American culture shifted, American flags were flung at doors in every state, and for a brief moment, the country was united in memory. 

As the years passed, the commemorations and memorials became fewer and farther between, especially farther away from where the events actually occurred. Occasionally, a visiting exhibit would rekindle the memory, but as the survivors got older, and rising generations either didn’t remember or were born after the fact, the events faded into history. There is a place, however where the memory of that day, and those events and people are very much alive. 

In New York and New Jersey, where many of those affected and their families still live, walking along the streets of the cities and towns around the anniversary of the attacks, people will see American flags, decals and stickers of the Twin Towers, names of those who died in the attacks and more. Many of these towns have formal and permanent memorials, lists of names, sometimes even pieces of the towers themselves preserved, and displayed prominently to remember those lives lost in the attacks that day.

The anniversary itself raises all of this to a new level. Standing on the edge of the Hudson River, from Jersey City to as far away as Union Beach, two spotlights are shone into the sky from what was once referred to as Ground Zero. From the spot where the Towers once stood, two beams of light shoot up into the sky every Sept. 11, and that night, the towers fill the Manhattan skyline once again. This memorial called the “Tribute in Light” began just months after the attacks, and though initially conceived as a temporary tribute, it has continued annually since then.

It’s an example that everyone in the United States could and should learn from. Despite the passage of time, the sudden, violent and unexpected loss of so many that day should be cause for pause, memory and dedication. Though distance and time separate the west from the east where the attacks occurred, Sept. 11 can and should be a day that every citizen of the United States comes together, year after year.