09/11/2026
Seeing images of the Twin Towers on September 11th takes me back to a very different set of memories. It reminds me of what once was a way of life for so many families in NY.
My grandmother worked at a bank in Manhattan's financial district in the 1980s. She took the LIRR, caught the subway, and made that commute into the city every day. On the days when I had time off from school, I’d make that trip with her. I would sit at the gigantic windows and watch a million taxis and limos stop and go all day. I never imagined that would ever change.
As a kid, I thought I was simply having a couple of cool experiences with my grandmother. I didn’t realize that she, like so many others, was allowing me to be a part of a bigger story in our history. But I was watching a Black woman build a career and confidently move through one of the most powerful places in the world, at a time when there were far fewer women who looked like her in those spaces. I never thought of the hundreds of thousands of others who were watching that same story unfold.
I remember looking out at those buildings and that skyline and thinking that the world was enormous, but also still knowing that there was a
Watching her taught me not to wait until a space feels familiar to enter it. It also taught me that some lessons are never spoken out loud - they are simply transferred in the form of real-life experiences. Sometimes, living your life without limits shows others what is possible.
The images of the World Trade Center carry a very different weight now, especially on September 11. I hold these childhood memories alongside the remembrance of the lives lost, the families that are forever changed, and a place that became part of so many people's personal histories.
For me, it is also a reminder of the woman who first taught me, simply by living her life, to take chances and create my own dreams.
What memories are you creating today for the next generation?
