I belong to the blank generation

I don't know how to write about the tenth anniversary of 9/11. All we ever have of the dead are our memories and what we do with them; and these dead were so swiftly turned to propaganda, it seemed impossible to grieve them without becoming part of the national myth that hung out flags everywhere and wanted to see itself as the second coming of World War II. The trauma became a photo-op. It honored neither the living or the dead. And I don't want to see them lost to Iraq, Afghanistan, the TSA; they deserved to be mourned for themselves, not because they were wounded America. I can't light candles for them. None of them were my dead: I have no part in that grief. Ten years ago I sang "Amazing Grace" in a classroom. All I think I can do now is say their memory for a blessing, because once they were alive; and our memories, that we might use them better from now on.