An anniversary we didn't want

9/11 Remembered | Are we a different people because of Sept. 11? | Bob Jones

They're supposed to be happy occasions, these dates we call anniversaries. We expect cards and gifts. We plan a special dinner. We look back on the big event—wedding vows, usually—and turn reflective, emotional, misty-eyed.

Americans will be all those things on Sept. 11, but not in a good way. Politicians, preachers, and parents will all wrestle with the same question: How do you mark the anniversary of an event that never should have happened? Not just an event that's embarrassing or regrettable; but one that shook an entire nation, that scarred our collective consciousness and made us question our deepest assumptions.

Anniversaries typically get bigger with time. One year of marriage gets you paper. The 25th gets silver, then gold, and eventually diamond. So what do you call the first anniversary of a disaster? Is it the ash anniversary, or smoke perhaps? And as time goes by and wounds start to heal, do disaster anniversaries, like the marriage kind, get bigger and better? If year one is smoke, perhaps year five will be soot and year 10 merely dust.