09/11/2026
There are adults walking this earth today who were not alive on September 11, 2001.
They know the date.
They’ve seen the pictures.
They’ve watched the footage.
But they don’t remember the feeling.
And for those of us who do, it is almost impossible to explain.
We remember where we were.
We remember the confusion when the first plane hit.
We remember watching the second plane strike the South Tower and realizing, all at once, that this was not an accident.
We remember people standing in windows dozens of stories above the ground with nowhere left to go.
We remember strangers holding hands.
We remember firefighters carrying nearly 100 pounds of gear into buildings that thousands of people were desperately trying to escape.
While everyone else was coming down—
they were going up.
Floor after floor.
Step after step.
Toward the fire.
Toward the smoke.
Toward people they had never met.
Many of them already knew they might never come back down.
And they climbed anyway.
We remember watching the towers fall.
We remember New York disappearing beneath a cloud of dust.
We remember walls, fences and streetlights covered with photographs of missing people.
Husbands.
Wives.
Mothers.
Fathers.
Sons.
Daughters.
Each photograph carrying the same desperate hope:
Please let them come home.
For thousands of families, they never did.
That morning, people kissed their children goodbye before work believing they would see them at dinner.
Children went to school expecting their parents to pick them up.
Husbands and wives said ordinary goodbyes without knowing they were saying them for the last time.
And from airplanes and burning buildings came phone calls and voicemails no family should ever have to receive.
“I love you.”
“Tell the kids I love them.”
Words spoken by people who knew they were running out of time.
Then came the silence.
Empty skies.
Flags everywhere.
Candles on sidewalks.
Churches overflowing.
Strangers hugging strangers.
And an entire country grieving together.
For one brief moment, nobody asked who you voted for.
Nobody cared where you came from.
Nobody cared what you looked like.
We were Americans.
And we held each other up.
That is something our children need to know, too.
Tell them about the 2,977 innocent people who were killed that day.
Tell them about the firefighters who climbed.
Tell them about the police officers, paramedics and ordinary citizens who ran toward danger when every instinct told them to run away.
Tell them about the passengers of Flight 93 who learned what was happening and decided they would not sit quietly and wait to die.
Tell them about the children who grew up with photographs where memories should have been.
Tell them about the first responders who survived September 11th but spent years fighting illnesses caused by what they breathed that day.
Tell them what happened on September 11th.
But please—
tell them about September 12th, too.
Tell them what America looked like when we remembered how much we needed one another.
Because someday, the people who can still say,
“I remember that morning,”
will be gone.
And then remembering will become a responsibility passed to the next generation.
September 11th cannot become a few paragraphs in a history book.
Say their names.
Tell their stories.
Take your children to the memorials.
Show them the photographs of the towers standing against the New York skyline.
Explain why, 25 years later, seeing those images still catches your breath.
Explain why you remember.
Because on that day, we made a promise.
We would never forget.
Twenty-five years later, that promise matters more than ever.
🇺🇸 We remember the innocent.
We remember the heroes.
We remember the families who waited for someone who never came home.
We remember those who ran out.
And we will never forget those who ran in.
September 11, 2001.
May we never become too far removed from that day to understand what it cost.
And may we never forget what September 12th showed us about who we could be. 🇺🇸
