WASHINGTON, DC (WUSA) -- Each of us commemorates 9/11 in our own way: with service, with prayers, or just with our family.
Gajinder Singh, a Sikh-American, took his five year old grand-daughter on the Unity March, visiting houses of worship up and down Massachusetts Ave, NW. He cried just thinking about 9/11, "that is the beauty of this country. We take care of each of our people. And we should, that's the most important," he told me.
At the Takoma Park Folk Festival, there was talk of rescheduling. But organizers decided to stick to holding the festival on September 11. Changing to a different day would grant the terrorists a victory. "You can do bad things" to us said David Eisner of the House of Musical Traditions, "but we are going to do what we do, because we are a strong nation."
But there are also questions at the folk festival. Maria Paoletti, selling t-shirts emblazoned with the word for "peace" in three languages, wondered if two wars really the best response to the 9-11 attacks. "It doesn't really show that we've been able to transcend the hatred that brought 9/11 here. We've really only been able to hate in return."
On Freedom Plaza in downtown DC, the commemoration was the opposite of hatred. It was 9/11 as a day to help others.
Tell stories... wave flags... make math puzzles for schoolchildren.
For more than one thousand people, 9/11 was a Unity March down Massachusetts Avenue, door to door to Houses of Worship of many different faiths. "We get to learn a little about each other, and that is something that will unite us," said Luis Rojas, who is Muslim.
Ten years later, many of us retain that deep abiding faith that adversity can draw us closer together.
In Greenbelt, and in Manassas, 9-11 was also a stair climb.
Firefighters -- many in full turn-out gear -- symbolically finished the 110 story climb that their fallen comrades at the Twin Towers were never able to finish.
Written by Bruce Leshan
9News Now & wusa9.com