Remembering 9/11 - the Sequel

I thought there would be a lot more flags flying from homes and poles and mailboxes in the hugely Republican towns where I live. Without provocation many of these folks fly flags all year from their trucks, often forgetting to replace them when they become tattered and torn. They line their driveways with small flags on major holidays. They talk constantly about who is – and isn’t – a “real” American. Patriotism, seemingly, oozes from their pores.

So where were the flags today, the tenth anniversary of the September 11th terror attacks?

We don’t fly a flag on a regular basis. But this is the tenth anniversary of a day none of us who lived through it will ever forget. So my husband and I were determined to pay our respects. To the people who lost their lives and their families. To the heroes who searched for the dead and missing, some sacrificing their own lives after inhaling the toxic dust on “the pile” for months. To this country we call the United States of America.

We finally found our little flags, late last evening, at the one store that sells flags in the entire region. At 9:30 last night we drilled holes for them to stand tall -- in the structure which holds the rural mailboxes on our road. It was the very least we could do.

Today I walked and ran and drove through our town and several close-by towns. Expecting to see every house with some kind of a flag as a memorial, as a statement of solidarity, of nationhood. But where were the flags on this tenth anniversary of 9/11? Where were the flags as the commemorative ceremony was unfolding at the Twin Towers site?

Oh there were some. A house here and there. A Wendy’s on the highway where workers had climbed on the roof to make the flags visible to all. But in front of the grandest, most expensive homes I saw – there were no flags. Nothing. Just perfectly manicured lawns and bushes and flowers. All the more startling in a town where large sections had been devastated by both Hurricane Irene and the rainy remnants of Tropical Storm Lee. Perfection for your lawn, big house. But nothing for the worst terror attack in U.S. history.

Among the homes actually flying flags from formal flagpoles, a surprising number flew them from the top of the pole, as on a normal day. Perhaps not realizing that on a day where we remember the dead, the flag should be flying at half mast.

But then I saw the house that has now been seared into my memory. It was just a little, unadorned house. On a small piece of land. It had been severely flooded by Irene; its insides were already gutted and a For Sale sign was prominently displayed in the front yard. And yet its owners – who had already lost everything else – had found a flag. A good sized flag. Which was tacked up carefully across the siding for all the world to see.

That flag says so much. It says we who live here have lost a lot –but not so much that we can’t remember those who lost so much more. And it says something else that is perhaps purely American. It says we are down but we are not out. We will move on and rebuild our lives. As the 9/11 families have done. As Americans always do.

How much more does this flag say about the America we hope we live in than those grand homes with the perfect lawns I saw today?

It says everything.