Last year, Flyer News covered the 10-year anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, which killed nearly
3,000 people, including six University of Dayton alumni. This year, we reprint in full a Sept. 21, 2001 column
from then-Opinions Editor Andy Comer, who captured the beginning of our university’s return to normalcy.
The sun rose again last week.
It did the same this week, too, just as it had for centuries.
In the back of my mind, I honestly thought the world was ending after seeing the Sept. 11 terrorist attack. I
was positive the sun might refuse to shine, that we would plunge into eternal darkness as punishment for man’s
heinous acts.
Life went on.
So here we are over a week later, with over a week’s full of sunrises behind us, and the world still turns.
How cruel a fate that the mysterious forces in the universe decide to continue life as usual, even if thousands
are dead, even if those responsible are still at large.
Yet the world turned on its offset axis, the rains came and went, and classes resumed.
In other words, it was eerily normal.
A sense of normalcy is just what we needed.
I needed to be in class, to concentrate on Native American History or Freelance Writing, not to make myself
miserable over a situation I could not change.
I needed to watch wrestling. I needed to go see Ducksauce put on a killer show at The Pub, to see Mike and
the boys tear down the house.
I needed to be surrounded by my peers who were experiencing the same life-changing events as I was and to
know that for once, I wasn’t alone.
So when do we stop mourning? When is it okay for the sorrow to turn to anger?
When do we resume our lives and help pick up the pieces for friends who lost loved ones?
There is no set time to stop, no set way to grieve or react to such a horrible situation. Everyone handles grief
in a different way, and everyone is affected in varying degrees by what has happened.
The sun will rise tomorrow – have no fear.
