On 9/11

Today was 9/11.  Today was my day off.  I woke up later in the morning.  Mrs. Fuzz made breakfast for the kids and needed me to get a few things for her from the store.  It was a quick and uneventful trip.  The neighborhood seemed the same today as it does every other day.  No flags, no stillness, just the normal noise and feel. 

Periodically I thought about the towers, the pentagon, and the field.  I thought about the people responsible and the people who died.  I didn't talk about it but it was heavy on my mind throughout the day.  Every year on this day I ask myself the same question: how do you honor the dead on the anniversary of such a horrific event? 

I think the answer is different for everyone and maybe it changes with time.  I remember being confused and in awe on the day it happened.  At first I thought it was a horrible accident.  Then as the news started to come in that it wasn't an accident, but a terrorist attack, I remember feeling despair and then anger.  I couldn't believe that anyone would try, let alone succeed, in such an act against the most powerful nation on earth. 

So today, I revisited those feelings quietly to myself.  Today the answer to this question was this.  Today to honor the dead, I can be better.  I am lucky enough to be alive.  I have a beautiful wife and children.  I have a job I love that allows me to contribute in a tiny way to the fight.  So I can be better in the hopes that I will someday deserve what I am so blessed to have.  I can be a better son.  I can be a better father.  I can be a better husband.  I can be a better brother.  I can be a better cop.  I can be a better person.

I tried to do that today.  I hope I succeeded.