This morning, I’m taking my youngest son to his first organized sports activity: soccer for 3-year-olds. Later, we’re stopping by a friend’s house, and then I’m taking my older son to a miniature golf birthday party, and somewhere in there hitting the back-to-school picnic at my kids’ elementary school if we can squeeze it in.

It’s a day full of plans, something that’s taken me aback a bit. Before all this happened, we had planned a family event for this weekend, and when my wife suggested this particular date, I said, “No way.” No one’s going to want to go to anything on the 10th anniversary of 9/11.

So we moved our thing to September 10, which was lucky only because it turned out seemingly everyone had something they wanted to do on September 11, and I’m not talking about sitting around and watching anniversary specials. Lives are being lived, not irreverently, necessarily, but without reverence as a priority.

And I’m glad. I know why I pictured spending the day laying low, watching coverage of the anniversary when I wasn’t wrangling three kids who weren’t alive when the tragedy happened, but that picture didn’t make sense on a couple of levels. There would have been value to it, but there will be more value to what we do instead: trying to make more memories.

Anniversaries serve a purpose. Certainly 9/11 does. I don’t constantly stop and think about that day, but I do need to from time to time. To understand why, you can read this piece I wrote for Dodger Thoughts in mid-2006.

… Sometimes the hole closes up. Sometimes, I learned this week, you need to reopen it. …

I’m glad we don’t feel trapped by that anniversary. I just don’t want to forget what happened, for the sake of those directly affected.