Today the campus settles back comfortably on the couch of remembrance and points the remote at the television.
Rewind.
We’ll see it all again — the national news networks will not let us escape it. The flaming towers, the smoking Pentagon, the shocked stares of disbelief. It will be the DVD version — complete with all the extra footage and actor commentary.
But today we can recline in our seats. The wrenching anxiety, the naked insecurity, is gone. Today, we all know what happened. Today, the story is complete. Last Sept. 11, however, we knew nothing. With eyes glued to news tickers like never before, we waited for the blockbuster to unfold.
And it has unfolded — with a vengeance. So it’s left for us to mark the day it began and to work out what it has meant, and will mean, to the people of this university.
Some of us are among the friends and families of the victims. For those students, faculty or staff, a newspaper’s words and photos can do nothing to replace a father’s hug or a best friend’s laugh. But the nation and the campus can grieve and remember with them. Most of us are not New Yorkers. Most of us do not have friends in the Pentagon. But all of us are human, and humanity rose to the occasion one year ago today.
Students who may never have traveled further than Madison’s East Side began to flock to blood drives, candlelit vigils and peace rallies. Anti-prejudice protesters picketed Library Mall, and campus counselors stood ready to listen.
Today, the kernel of kindness remains while the climate has changed. We’ve eased back into normal routines while international and national events play out somewhere far removed from the Rathskellar or Camp Randall. Life, and news, goes on. Looking no further than the stories on this page reveals the daily grind cycling on. And that’s the way it should be. But today is for remembrance and contemplation; contemplation of both past and future events.
Pause.