One year ago today, shortly after 9.46 a.m., Bermuda came to a standstill as the full impact of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon became clear.

For many people, their world has never been the same again, and the last 12 months have seen a wave of changes for Bermuda and the world that no one would have anticipated.

The searing images of those two planes crashing onto the Twin Towers and the buildings' subsequent collapse, the extraordinary sight of the Pentagon with a gaping hole on one side and the gash in the Pennsylvania countryside where Flight 93 went down, are burned into the consciousness of everyone alive on that day.

For those with relatives and friends who were lost in the attacks, life will never be the same and the memories of that day will always be very much alive. And again today, all of us in Bermuda should take time to remember Boyd Gatton and Rhondelle Tankard whose lives, for no reason at all, were cut short in such a terrible way. We should remember their families, who have lost so much.

In spite of the horrible memories of the aftermath of those events, the subsequent war on terrorism in Afghanistan and around the world, the related fall of world stock markets, and now the beating of the drums of war against Iraq, in spite of all of what has passed, the most remarkable thing about today is how normal life is again.

It would be impossible to keep mourning as people did in the wake of the attacks. And it would be unrealistic to expect the remarkable world unity that followed the attacks to continue over all issues and concerns. Invariably, human beings have to return to work, to raising children, to arguing over relatively petty matters.

But today's very normality is also a mark of people's resilience. Terrorism aims to target innocent people in the belief that they will be cowed into giving the terrorists what they want. Terrorism tries to dislocate every day life to such an extent that societies become paralysed, thus making it possible for those who hate our way of life to do what they want without fear of the consequences. Terrorists want the vast majority of people to appease them and to give them what they want, without regard for principle or the difference between right and wrong, so that they will stop the killing.

And yet people do not react that way, at least they have not after September 11. If anything, the attacks have made people examine their lives and try to live more fulfilling and complete lives. Far from cowering, people have stood up for what they believe in. They have not stopped working, they have not stopped raising children, they have not stopped contributing. The terrorists, in attacking the symbols of the American economy and the American military, did not stop anyone; they gave them renewed strength to stand up for what they believed in.

In that sense, the innocent people who died on September 11 did not die in vain. Their deaths have given the survivors renewed purpose and a renewed sense of what is important in life. May we always remember them.