Sept. 11 is a day of national mourning. This year marked the 23rd anniversary of the awful, sad, mind-boggling day when terrorists took so many lives. Moments in history like that, the big traumas, they leave a really big scar. You remember where you were.

Midcoast resident Heather D. Martin wants to know what’s on your mind; email her at heather@heatherdmartin.com.

I was home, snuggled up with my not-quite-1-year-old baby. He was asleep in my arms and I was watching him sleep, enraptured.

When the radio program in the background cut away, there was a tone in the voice of the NPR reporter that demanded my attention. I set down my son, and went out to the other room to listen. The world shattered.

I was safe in my home, far from actual danger. My son was safe in his bed. We were fine. At the same time, none of us was fine. From that point on, everything that happened to any of us, good or bad, was still inexorably “after.”

Sept. 11 is many other things, too. In our family, it is my niece’s birthday (shout out to you, Squirt) and also my parents’ wedding anniversary.

My parents were married in the Bronx on Sept. 11, 1954. Hurricane Edna was raging outside and in their reception photos you can see the candle flames laying sideways as the gusts found their way through the church hall walls.

In those same photos, they are also both impossibly young. My mom often told me she hated her heavy satin gown her mother had chosen for her, but from where I sit, she looked like a fairy tale. There is a photo of them smiling together that I just love.

Dad died on Sept. 12, 2020. One day after their 66th wedding anniversary. It is the fourth anniversary of his death as I sit at the family table and write this. Mom died in June, having spent much of the past four years laughing with grandkids and telling stories – but all of those same four years missing Dad and wanting to be with him.

This year, more than ever before, I’ve overheard a lot of anxiety that folks are starting to forget 9/11. I’ve heard concerns it is not being taught in schools, that the memorials are fewer, the memories fainter. I don’t know.

I’m not saying that is not the case, I genuinely do not know, but I wonder if some of what we are experiencing isn’t the natural, and perhaps necessary, adjustment of grief.

When the towers fell, our entire nation was lost and sunk in grief. Rightly so. When my father died, my loss was so devastating I could barely lift my head. Rightly so.

And yet, eventually, the dog needed to be walked, the floors needed to be vacuumed, the kids needed to be fed. So I adjusted.

I think maybe that’s how grief works. We figure out a way to adjust the weight of the pain of it so we can function.

But, we don’t forget.

I have a lot of joy, even though I haven’t forgotten my parents or the pain of losing them. I haven’t forgotten the shock and grief of 9/11, or the faces of the people shown by the news. We adjust.

The baby who was asleep in my arms that day? He is all grown up and serving our state as a firefighter, which I assure you is not a coincidence.

I don’t claim that he remembers that day, but the “after” is the world that shaped him. He remembers the most important part – that even as chaos descended, there were people who rushed toward it to help. Yesterday, his station posted a message that he helped deliver a baby. A baby!

For me, that feels like a full-circle moment.

Life is a balance. Grief and joy, love and loss, pride and service to community. In solemn remembrance, we can – and must – embrace living our lives to the fullest.