25 Years Later...

It is hard for me to wrap my head around the fact that it has been twenty-five years since September 11, 2001. Twenty-five years since the Twin Towers fell. Twenty-five years since so many of us sat in front of televisions trying to understand what we were watching. Somehow, it feels like a lifetime ago and yesterday at the same time.

When I think about September 11, I think about the images we all know. The smoke. The towers. The people running through the streets. The firefighters and first responders heading toward something everyone else was desperately trying to escape. The videos of the planes hitting the towers and those trapped jumping to their deaths. Those images are etched into our memories in a way that can be tapped into at any moment. For those of us who lived through it, they are still so vivid that I do not think we could ever forget them, even if we wanted to. They became part of our history almost instantly, but I think sometimes the enormity of what happened can make us forget something important. Those buildings were filled with ordinary people living ordinary lives.

They woke up that morning without knowing there was anything different about that Tuesday. They got dressed for work. They drank coffee. They probably rushed around looking for keys or complained about traffic. Some kissed their spouses goodbye. Some dropped children off before heading to work. Someone probably left dishes in the sink because they planned to take care of them later. Someone had dinner plans. Someone had an argument they expected to finish that evening. Someone said, “See you tonight,” fully believing they would.

That is the part that has always stayed with me.

None of us really know which ordinary moments will someday become the ones we would give anything to have back.

September 11 was an unimaginable tragedy. Thousands of people never came home that day, and thousands of families were forever changed. There is no way to make something like that beautiful, and I do not think we should try. Some things are simply heartbreaking.

But tragedy was not the only thing we witnessed that day.

We witnessed courage.

We watched firefighters climb stairwells while others were coming down. We saw police officers, paramedics, coworkers, and complete strangers helping one another. People carried people they had never met. They opened doors. They gave blood. They searched through rubble. They called the people they loved because when everything else suddenly became uncertain, love was what mattered.

For all of the horror of that day, there was also an incredible amount of humanity, and I think that is worth remembering too.

We witnessed Unity.

Americans came together in a way that feels almost impossible to imagine now. For a moment, race, religion, political beliefs, and so many of the things we usually allow to divide us seemed to matter less. People were not asking who you voted for, what church you attended, where you came from, or what you believed. They were helping one another, grieving together, and standing beside people they may have had very little in common with. In the middle of unimaginable tragedy, we were reminded that we were Americans first, and human beings before anything else.

What really stops me now is realizing that twenty-five years is long enough for an entire generation to have grown up without any memory of that day at all. There are adults today who were not alive when the towers fell. There are parents raising children who know September 11 only through photographs, documentaries, classrooms, museums, books, and the stories passed down by those of us who remember exactly where we were. I am one of those mothers. My son had been born just two days before September 11, and my daughter was only two years old. They grew up knowing the story, but not carrying the memory of that day the way those of us who lived through it do.

On a road trip through Arizona, we came across a remembrance garden with two steel beams from the World Trade Center and an American flag from the Pentagon. Watching my children stand beside those beams was striking because you could see that they did not fully understand the gravity of what was in front of them. To them, they were pieces of steel from an event they had only ever heard about. To me, they were something entirely different.

For them, it is history.

For those of us who lived through it, it still feels personal.

I think that is one reason I have had such a difficult time getting through The Only Plane in the Sky: An Oral History of 9/11 by Garrett M. Graff . I started trying to read it on April 6, and here I am months later, still working my way through it. It is not because the book is bad. Quite the opposite. It tells the story in a way that makes you feel as though you are there. It takes something we have seen reduced to photographs, timelines, numbers, and news footage and gives it people, voices, moments, fear, courage, and life.

There are books you fly through, and then there are books you have to put down because you need a minute before you can pick them back up again. This has been one of those books for me.

Reading it has also made me think about the generations who did not experience September 11 firsthand. They can learn the facts. They can know the dates and watch the footage. They can stand where the towers once stood. But a story can sometimes do something facts alone cannot. It can help you understand that the people inside those buildings were not simply part of a historical event. They were living a Tuesday morning.

Eventually, memory becomes storytelling. The responsibility shifts from the people who witnessed something to the people who are willing to keep telling the story. Not just the story of what happened, but the story of who was lost, who ran toward danger, who helped, who comforted, and how people came together in the aftermath.

There will come a time when no one alive remembers watching those towers stand. No one will remember the confusion of that morning firsthand. September 11, 2001 will belong completely to history.

I also find myself thinking about the days that followed. There was grief, anger, fear, and confusion, but there was something else too. People reached for one another. Neighbors checked on neighbors. Strangers stood together. For a moment, so many of the things we normally use to separate ourselves from one another did not seem quite as important.

We remembered that underneath all of our labels, opinions, backgrounds, and differences, we are human beings first and I wish we carried more of that with us.

Our world can feel incredibly divided now. Sometimes it seems like we have become experts at finding reasons not to like one another. We argue over politics, beliefs, lifestyles, generations, and opinions. We make assumptions about people we have never met. We forget that behind every opinion is an actual person with a family, fears, hopes, memories, and people they love.

September 11 showed us the worst of humanity, but the response to it also showed us some of the best. It showed us courage when people were terrified. It showed us kindness in the middle of chaos. It showed us people putting their own safety aside to help someone else. Most importantly, it reminded us that when everything unnecessary is stripped away, people matter.

Maybe that is where the hope lives twenty-five years later.

We cannot change what happened. We cannot bring back the people who were lost or erase the pain their families have carried. But we can decide what we do with the memory.

We can remember the people, not simply the tragedy.

We can tell the next generation why this day still matters. We can make sure they understand that September 11 was not simply a chapter in a history book or footage from another time. These were real people with ordinary lives, plans, families, and futures. We can teach them about the tragedy, but we can also teach them about the courage and compassion that followed it.

We can choose kindness when the world gives us plenty of reasons to become cynical. We can help someone without first asking whether they think like we do. We can tell people we love them while we still have the chance. We can forgive a little easier. We can stay at the dinner table a little longer. We can stop treating ordinary days like they are something we are simply supposed to get through.

Because ordinary days are not insignificant.

Twenty-five years ago, thousands of people woke up expecting an ordinary Tuesday. They had plans for later. They expected tomorrow.

That thought is heartbreaking, but I also think there is something incredibly important hidden inside it.

We are here.

Today is one of those ordinary days we so easily take for granted.

So maybe remembering September 11 should not only make us sad. Maybe it should make us pay attention. Maybe it should remind us to notice the people sitting beside us, to be kinder to the stranger in front of us, to make the phone call, to say the words, to take the picture, to laugh loudly, and to appreciate the incredibly ordinary privilege of coming home at the end of the day.

We remember because those lives mattered.

And maybe one of the best ways we can honor them is by remembering that ours do too.

A Moment to Reflect

Some memories stay with us because they changed the way we saw the world. September 11 reminded us how quickly an ordinary day can become unforgettable, but it also showed us what people are capable of when we choose courage, compassion, and unity over division.

What do you remember most about that day, and what do you hope the generations who did not live through it will understand about it?