25 Years Later

It’s hard to believe it’s been 25 years since September 11.

I was in high school, and I remember teachers turning on the TVs as the news started coming in. There were reports about the plane crashes, airports were in chaos, and nobody really seemed to know what was happening yet. Our school may have been locked down at some point, but honestly, I don’t remember.

What I do remember is not really understanding how big it was.

New York City felt so far away. Not unreachable, exactly, I just didn't exactly know what to do about what I was seeing. I knew something terrible had happened, but I had no idea how much the events from that day would change the country, affect people around the world, and continue shaping lives for years afterward.

A few years later, I traveled to New York while I was in college and passed by the World Trade Center site. Cleanup was still underway. Seeing the space in person helped me understand the magnitude of the devastation. Then, in 2024, I went back to New York and visited the memorial and museum. They did an amazing job memorializing the stories of the day, and it was such an impactful visit.

By then, I understood so much more about what I had been watching on those classroom TVs all those years before. 

Twenty-five years goes by awfully fast.

So this week, I'm taking a moment to remember the people who lost their lives, the families who carried that loss forward, the people who ran toward the danger to help, and those who are still living with the effects of that day.

And if you remember September 11, 2001, maybe tell someone what you remember from that day. These are stories worth passing on.