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National Day of Remembrance and Prayer

Tonight I was fortunate to hear Alice Sebold read a portion of the essay published in the NYTimes:

The truth is, none of us knows what the dead do. But on earth, where we remain, the living become the keepers of their memory. This is an awesome and overwhelming responsibility. And it is simple: we must not forget them.

She writes about the dead of Sept 11 and the victims of Katrina and its aftermath and more importantly, what we do with the knowledge of them and their deaths. What can we do with the loss of people we might never know anything about, only that they died?

Whatever it is that comes to you in three months, six months, a year or more, don’t turn the page of your book and forget, don’t stab the elevator button trying to hurry up the trip. Stop.

These tragedies, it’s worth remembering, grant us an opportunity to understand what is perhaps our finest raw material: our humanity. The way we at our best treat one another. The way we listen to one another. The way we grieve.

Go read the whole because it’s a keeper. Its simplicity and directness can help all of us.