Remember. Begin Again. Plant Something.

Twenty-five years ago, September 11 changed America.

We remember the people who were lost. We remember the firefighters, the police officers, the first responders, and the ordinary people who ran toward the danger instead of away from it.

And there is something else. For a little while, we seemed to know that we belonged to one another.

Twenty-five years is a long time. Children born that year are grown now. The saplings planted in 2001 are trees you can sit under. Gardens have been planted, lost to storms, cleared away, and planted again.

This year the calendar does something unusual. At sunset on September 11, Rosh Hashanah begins - the Jewish New Year, a time for reflection and for beginning again.

One day asks us to remember. The evening asks us to begin again.

Gardeners know something about this. A garden is never finished. Storms come. Branches break. Plants die. We clear away what was lost, protect what survived, and decide what to plant next. We cannot change what happened yesterday. We do have some say over what grows tomorrow.

And that question reaches well past the garden. What do we want to grow in the year ahead? More trees. More shade. More places where people can sit together. More kindness. More things that will still be alive after today's arguments are forgotten.

To plant something is to bet on a future you may not see. You put a young tree in the ground knowing that someday someone else may sit in its shade. You plant knowing the storms will come.

So on this September 11, we remember what was lost. As a new year begins at sunset, we are grateful for what remains. And then we begin again.