What ‘Never Forget’ asks of us

I drive past Bedford Town Hall often, and I tend to notice the American flag out front.

More times than I care to admit, I’ve driven by and seen it at half-staff without knowing why. Usually, I look it up later. Sometimes I learn that a prominent American has died. Other times there has been a tragedy or a news story that I somehow missed.

In those moments, the flag has done exactly what it is supposed to do. It has made me stop and ask a question. Why is it lowered? Who are we honoring? What happened that I should know about?

A few weeks ago was different. For the first time, I drove past Bedford Town Hall and found myself wondering the opposite.

Why isn’t the flag at half-staff?

It was Sept. 11.

Twenty-five years after the attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people, the American flag outside the building that represents our town was flying at full staff.

I called Town Hall and asked that it be lowered. It was.

Later, I received an explanation. I was told that the Bedford Police Department receives flag notifications through the eJustice system, which prompts the Police Department to notify building maintenance staff that the flags should be lowered. That morning, the notification apparently did not come through, so the staff responsible for lowering the flags was not notified.

Town Hall apologized for the oversight and told me that reminders have now been added for annual nationwide half-staff observances to make sure it does not happen again. I appreciate the apology. I appreciate that the mistake was corrected. And I appreciate that the town has taken steps to prevent it from happening again.

Mistakes happen. But I haven’t been able to stop thinking about this one.

Not because I want to prolong an unfortunate mistake or assign blame. I’ve been thinking about it because the explanation made me reconsider those two words we repeat every September: Never Forget.

What does that promise mean 25 years later? And what happens when remembering depends upon receiving a reminder?

Later that day, I took my almost 2-year-old son to the Sept. 11 ceremony in Mount Kisco. He had absolutely no idea why he was there. Truthfully, he was far more interested in the fire trucks parked along the street than anything happening at the ceremony.

I brought him anyway. I’ll bring him next year too. I’ll take him when he’s old enough to start asking questions. I’ll take him when he’s a teenager and perhaps would rather be somewhere else.

I’m curious about what he will remember as he gets older. Maybe someday he’ll have some vague childhood memory of standing along the street looking at fire trucks. Maybe he won’t remember these first ceremonies at all.

That’s OK. My job isn’t to make him understand it today. It’s to help him understand why it matters someday.

Right now, the fire trucks are just "fire rucks" as he pronounces them. Someday I will tell him about the people who climbed aboard trucks just like them on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001.

Right now, the names read aloud mean nothing to him. Someday I will explain that those names belonged to real people. They were parents and children, husbands and wives, brothers and sisters, friends, colleagues and neighbors. People who left home that morning expecting to come back.

Right now, he doesn’t understand a moment of silence. Someday he will.

That is my responsibility as his father. But that responsibility does not belong only to parents. It belongs to grandparents and friends who tell the stories. It belongs to teachers and schools that explain what happened to children who were born decades afterward. It belongs to firefighters, police officers and EMS personnel who preserve the stories of those who served before them. It belongs to neighbors who attend the ceremonies and communities that continue to read the names.

And it belongs to our public officials and institutions.

Bedford has a role in remembering too. Town Hall is more than an office building. It represents our community, and the flag outside is more than decoration. When that flag is lowered, it tells everyone who passes that something has happened that deserves our attention and respect.

Lowering that flag matters. It isn’t bureaucratic housekeeping. It is an act of remembrance, and that is ultimately why what happened Friday affected me so deeply.

If the failure of an electronic notification could cause one of our most visible public institutions to miss one of the simplest acts of remembrance, then perhaps there is a lesson in that for all of us.

Because the electronic notification wasn’t the only thing that failed.

People arrived for work at Town Hall that morning and walked past the flag. Public officials walked past it. Residents drove by it.

How many people passed that flag? How many saw it without registering that anything was wrong?

That’s uncomfortable to think about because it means this wasn’t simply the failure of a computer system or one person responsible for lowering the flag.

It was a failure to notice.

And on Sept. 11, failing to notice is exactly what “Never Forget” asks us not to do.

Remembering cannot be something we automate and assume will happen. It requires people. It requires attention. It requires intention.

That applies to Bedford Town Hall. But it applies to all of us.

Twenty-five years from now, my son will be 27 years old. I won’t be putting him in the car and deciding where he goes on Sept. 11 anymore. I hope he decides to go himself. Maybe one day he’ll bring his own children.

I hope Sept. 11 arrives and he already knows. I hope he doesn’t need an alert on his phone or a notification on a computer to remind him what day it is.

And I hope that if he ever drives past a public building on Sept. 11 and sees an American flag flying at full staff, something inside him immediately tells him that isn’t right.

I hope he notices.

And I hope he does something about it.

If he does, I’ll know I did my part to keep the promise.

Twenty-five years ago, “Never Forget” felt almost unnecessary to say. What we had witnessed was so horrific and so unimaginable that forgetting it seemed impossible.

But 25 years have passed.

Friday’s mistake at Bedford Town Hall was corrected. But perhaps it can serve as a reminder more lasting than any electronic notification.

Never Forget isn’t something we say. It’s something we have to do.

And every one of us has a part in doing it.