September 12th

There are no do-overs. But there are restarts.

Yesterday marked 25 years since September 11, 2001. Like so many people who were old enough to experience that day, I can still put myself back there almost instantly. I was a young parent. Our youngest daughter was only eight months old, and I remember watching what was happening and having thoughts that probably sound dramatic now, but didn’t feel dramatic at all then. Is this the beginning of World War III? Is this the end of the world as we know it? Who is the enemy? What happens next? And most importantly, how do I protect these little people I’ve brought into this world when I don’t even understand what is happening myself?

My brother was in New York that morning and had come out of the subway underneath one of the towers during all of the chaos. For hours, we couldn’t reach him. Cell phones weren’t what they are today, communication was overwhelmed, and all we could really do was trust that he was somewhere among that flock of people we were seeing on television making their way out of lower Manhattan. Sure enough, he eventually walked across the Brooklyn Bridge and made his way home. I can’t remember exactly when we finally heard his voice, but I remember the fear of not knowing.

And then, somehow, that horrible day ended.

The sun set. The moon rose. And on September 12th, the sun came up again.

I’ve been thinking a lot about that this morning because I remember September 12th almost as much as I remember September 11th. There was an eerie quiet, particularly because there were no airplanes overhead, something you don’t realize is part of the soundtrack of your life until suddenly it isn’t. But there was another kind of quiet too. People seemed softer with one another. Strangers talked. People made eye contact. Neighbors checked on neighbors. For at least a little while, it felt like we had been reminded that whatever our differences were, we were all human beings trying to make our way through something frightening together.

Years ago, I wrote a newsletter about something I noticed while running at the reservoir in West Hartford. I had started waving to everyone I passed and was amazed by how few people waved back. I blamed some of it, only half-jokingly, on the iPhone and how increasingly easy it had become to move through the world without really interacting with anyone around us. But I also wrote about how different I remembered people being immediately after 9/11. There was a connectedness that seemed to emerge from the horror of that day.

Twenty-five years later, I find myself wondering where that connectedness went.

I’ve unfortunately attended too many funerals and memorial services for people who died far too young. Working in education, coaching and youth sports for most of my adult life has meant that some of those services have been for young people and some for young parents. Whenever that happens, I try to do something afterward that changes the way I live my own life. Usually it isn’t anything dramatic. Sometimes nobody knows about it except me. Sometimes I’ll share it with Kerry. It might be a habit I change, someone I reach out to, something I stop worrying about, or simply a commitment to be more present. It is my small way of saying that if this person didn’t get all the days they deserved, maybe I can live one of mine a little differently in their honor.

And that’s why I’m beginning to think September 12th should be one of those days.

I say something to youth sports parents all the time: There are no do-overs, but there are restarts. We can’t undo September 11th. We can’t give those families back the people they lost. We can’t erase the wars, violence, hatred and division that have occurred in the 25 years since. But those of us fortunate enough to have awakened again this morning get another chance to decide what we are going to do with the day we’ve been given.

This week, Kerry came home and told me about a young girl who had applied to become one of our Physical Literacy Pals, or PLPs. She isn’t someone I know. She’s simply one of the nearly 6,000 kids we were fortunate enough to reach through 2-4-1 Sports last year. But when Kerry talked with her about why she wanted to become a PLP, this young girl talked about how much she had looked up to the older students who helped lead when she was younger. Now she wanted to be that person for somebody else. She wanted to give another kid what someone had once given her.

And I thought, there it is.

That’s the restart.

We create opportunities for kindness. We give kids authentic opportunities to lead and to take care of one another. We create teams where belonging actually means something. We help a child discover that they matter to a group and that the kid standing next to them matters too. We create places where kids can play and laugh and move and fail and try again. And maybe, if we’re really intentional about it, we help them understand that one of the best things they can do with a good experience is turn around and create that experience for somebody else.

I know how idealistic that sounds. There will be people who read this and say that the problems of the world are far too complicated to be solved by kids playing together, coaches caring about them, or communities creating places where people feel like they belong. And they’re right about the first part. The problems are incredibly complicated. I also understand that talking about peace in the context of terrorism can make people uncomfortable. Seeking peace isn’t the same thing as excusing evil, and trying to understand why hatred grows isn’t the same thing as sympathizing with those who act on it.

But I am an idealist.

I believe that if every kid, in every neighborhood, in every corner of the world, could wake up knowing there was somewhere they could go where they were safe, where they belonged, where someone knew their name, where they could play, where they could lead, where they could experience joy and where they could learn to care for the person next to them, we’d have a more peaceful world. I don’t think that’s naive. I think creating those places may be among the most practical investments in peace we can make.

September 11th will forever be a day when we remember the people who didn’t get to come home.

Maybe September 12th can be the day the rest of us ask ourselves what we’re going to do with the fact that we did.

There are no do-overs. But there are restarts.

To my fellow idealists, let’s make September 12th one of them.