It hit like an unexpected death in the family, shattering the once comfortable rhythms of our lives and leaving us to struggle with the dreadful uncertainty of what was to come.

On that one terrible morning, the boundaries that divide the country were suddenly erased. We put aside our regional differences for a time and grieved as one nation, not just for the thousands who perished in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania on Sept. 11, 2001, but for the tragic loss of something far less tangible for us all, something we have yet to grasp entirely a year later and possibly never will.

It began with denial, an overwhelming sense across the country that the horrific images on our TV screens could not be real, that this nightmare could not be happening to us. Next came the anger and resentment against those who had inflicted such pain and suffering. Who were these monsters, and why did they hate us? Then came the creeping numbness and despair as we looked around at a world that seemed darker, more frightening and dangerously out of control.

“Today, our nation saw evil,” said President Bush as the black cloud blanketed lower Manhattan and seeped into the consciousness of every American, from Maine to California.

But the evil we saw was not unrecognizable, even if most Americans chose not to look too closely at its face before that day. The evil had been lurking in our newspapers for years.

Now the rumors of war are rumors no longer. Over time, we have learned not so much how to live in fear, but how to accept the uncertainty that had always been in the background of our lives.

Today marks the annniversary of our introduction to a terrible reality we never thought we’d have to confront, the day we recognized the fragility of the domestic security we had once so casually mistaken for our birthright. How we choose to remember this occasion will be unique to each one of us, of course. Some of us will ignore the day, preferring instead to push away the memories rather than risk the pain of reliving them all over again. Others may welcome a nationwide observance as an opportunity to put into focus the general unease we might feel alone.

However we in Maine choose to approach this day – whether we believe Sept. 11 changed our lives immeasurably or hardly at all – none of us should forget the remarkable outpouring of compassion, sacrifice and solidarity that elevated us all as we strove to restore normalcy to our lives.

When the World Trade Center towers went down, we all became Americans first. In the most remote Maine towns, residents instinctively shelved their perceptions of New Yorkers as those brash tourists who pour into the state each summer and saw them instead as victims who needed whatever help we could offer.

In Bangor, hundreds of people showed up at the Red Cross blood donor centers while hundreds more jammed the phone lines.

“It was the only thing I could think to do to help,” said a young woman who had driven more than two hours from Kingfield to give blood that day.

As state and local governments set their own emergency plans into motion, and airports and national landmarks shut down, teachers across the state grappled with how best to speak with schoolchildren about the tragic events. Maine newspapers were inundated with calls from people fearful of what might have happened to friends and loved ones who lived and worked in Manhattan. Their bonds to the city quickly became a conduit of anxiety that spanned 500 miles.

Soon, we in Maine were to learn how closely connected we really were to the grisly events unfolding on our TV screens. A couple from Lubec died on American Airlines Flight 11, the first of two airplanes to slam into the twin towers, and a Madawaska couple lost their son-in-law when hijacked Flight 93 crashed in a field in western Pennsylvania. Mainers were shocked soon after when officials confirmed the most chilling suspicion: Two of the hijackers had begun their kamikaze mission that morning by flying from Portland to Boston.

In the weeks that followed, Maine people continued to pour into churches and synagogues as never before, seeking comfort in the nearness of family and friends. Our medical personnel, firefighters, police, Red Cross workers, religious leaders and funeral home directors offered their assistance in the massive rescue effort at the site that will forevermore be known as ground zero.

We festooned homes and automobiles throughout the state with American flags, did a brisk business in guns and gas masks, and held candelight vigils to mourn the victims and to bolster our resolve for the new war that would become a part of our lives for a long time to come. Sadly, our children suddenly had a Pearl Harbor of their own, a day of infamy that would be etched indelibly on their own timelines of history. And while we struggled to find a balance between living on high alert and restoring calm, the anthrax scare arrived by mail to unsettle us once more. As Christmas neared, Maine’s public health officials had already tested more than 350 samples of suspicious white powder sent in from around the state, and all were negative.

Many of us began making our pilgrimages to New York, to that 16-acre wound in the earth. There we added our names and heartfelt sentiments and tears to the impromptu shrines on the streets, and we stared in disbelief at the blank sky where the famous towers once stood. When we recalled the extraordinary acts of courage that had taken place at that hallowed ground, we knew our notion of heroism would be forever redefined.

Through the months of flag-waving, the star-spangled rhetoric and talk of retaliation, perhaps our noblest expressions of national resolve emerged in the quiet acts of compassion and tolerance we showed one another in our small communities.

“We are one nation, and you are part of it,” read one of the dozens of letters sent to a Pakistani-American family in Bangor who had become the targets of a few hate-filled tirades in those edgy weeks after Sept. 11.

In time, the fighting in Afghanistan and the hunt for Osama bin Laden made room for other front page headlines. The plunging stock market and the scandals plaguing corporate America and the Roman Catholic Church increasingly competed for our attention. Yet we no longer breeze past the news of distant conflicts the way we used to, because we recognize that those stories are now about us, too.

By spring, just as the last steel column was being removed from the vast graveyard in New York, pollsters assured us that more than 85 percent of Mainers felt a sense of normalcy in their lives again.

What normal means, one unforgettable year later, is now up to each of us to decide for ourselves.