Is it healthy to "never forget" 9/11?

As I write this on the 15th anniversary of 9/11/2001, there is a front-page story in the Maine Sunday Telegram reporting that we have arrived at the point in history at which high school students do not remember 9/11 because they weren't old enough, or in the case of the freshman class, hadn't been born yet. The question was posed as to how to teach 9/11 as a historical event when we teachers have horrifying memories of it, whereas to the students in class it's just an item on the timeline of U.S. history.

I've been asking myself for years now whether it's healthy to keep opening the 9/11 wound every year. Most of us have had traumatic or deeply upsetting events occur. Would it be considered healthy if we relived every detail every year on the anniversary date? I suspect not. To choose the most devastating example I can think of,  I know people who have lost a child under various circumstances: stillbirth, cancer, accident. Of course they never forget their lost child; indeed, that lost child is always thought of as part of the family. And many families observe a ritual of their own design. One family I know takes balloons to their stillborn daughter's grave site on holidays. Another family goes swimming every year at their son's favorite beach on his August birthday. It is vitally important to these families that the memories of their child not fade. And it is wonderful that they have found ways to find solace and to come together to remember their child. But do they commemorate the grim circumstances of their children's deaths? I would imagine that any families who annually observed and relived the worst moments at the hospital or the scene of the accident would be urged to seek counseling and to heal from their trauma as best they could. And for 9/11, it is time to bring an end to photos and video in the media of the burning towers. 

I commend the efforts of community groups who have taken steps in the direction of refocusing 9/11 by organizing blood drives or events to honor and thank police officers, firefighters, and emergency medical personnel. I am less enthusiastic about reframing it as a patriotic holiday in view of the anti-Muslim sentiment that some elements of society persist in perpetuating. We have Memorial Day, Independence Day, and Veterans' Day on the calendar of U.S. holidays. Little mention is made anymore on the anniversary of December 7, 1941 as a grim event in U.S. history. I personally will be relieved when September 11, 2001 also fades from public attention. Of course everyone processes grief and trauma in their own way and in their own time. As for me, my 9/11/2001 memories have become gray and indistinct like other bad memories from my lifetime, and I choose not to partake of the media coverage. Healing is healthier than obsessing.