“The drums, of course, are beating. The Anniversary is coming up, and everyone is insisting not just that we remember, not just that we mourn, but that we do it The Right Way.” — Anil Dash
So many of us, I think, are worried that we’ll choose the wrong way to grieve tomorrow, that we won’t honor our dead with the proper respect, that our moments of silence, or singing, or flag-waving, or watching eulogies played out on TV would all be better spent doing something else, being somewhere else, or doing nothing at all. It’s easy to second-guess our motives, our intentions, our natural impulses. We have so little experience with this sort of thing. Everything that’s planned for tomorrow sounds like too much, or not enough, either cheap sentimentality or empty gestures. We want — need — to take steps to commemorate, but I think we’re stuck between not wanting this to be “just another day” and, in our hearts, wishing that it was.
I have no plans for tomorrow. I don’t intend to call in sick from work or leave early, and I haven’t purchased candles or flags to put in the window. I don’t know what I’ll do. A quiet moment, maybe, with some music or a book. I cannot honor the dead by listening to speeches or watching never-before-seen footage, but I understand why some people will do that, and their grief is just as real, if not more so, than mine. There is no wrong way to grieve, and you cannot take the wrong steps tomorrow if you act from honest emotion.
It isn’t how we honor the dead that matters. It’s just important that we do.