Robyn Higley has always hated September. It’s the month when everything bad happens, when her spirits, generally so bright and bubbly the rest of the year, grow bleak and deflated.
She feels sad in September. Though she doesn’t fully understand why.
As the 20th anniversary of 9/11 approaches, she knows that this September is going to be worse than even the 19 others she has lived through. The media will endlessly reprise that terrible day, there will be an outpouring of patriotic fervor and emoting, and she will be even more on show than in previous years.
“I do not like it all,” she said. “Yes I get it, the 20th is a big thing. But there’s so much expectation of how I’m supposed to feel. People expect this grieving little girl who’s so heartbroken. But I’m almost 20 years old, I’m grown up now.”
It’s complicated being Robyn Higley around 9/11. How should she grieve for the father whom she never met? What should she make of the label that has…