09/11/2026
It is hard to comprehend that 25 years have passed since September 11, 2001. I still remember exactly where I was. I was in Scottsdale, Arizona, taking depositions with Tom and several colleagues. I awoke to a phone call from Marsha telling me to turn on the television. I watched the second plane hit the South Tower.
One of the attorneys with us, who remains a close friend and client today, was from New York and his wife worked in the Twin Towers. The phone lines were congested and for some period of time outgoing or incoming calls were next to impossible. Thankfully, she had not arrived at work yet that day and was safe. Many of her colleagues were not as lucky.
Nearly 3,000 people went about an ordinary Tuesday morning and never came home. We watched first responders run toward unimaginable danger. We watched strangers help strangers. We watched ordinary Americans demonstrate extraordinary courage.
Yet, 25 years later, I find myself thinking just as much about what happened after September 11.
In the days and months that followed, America felt different. We were heartbroken, frightened and angry, but what happened had changed us. For a while, we stopped seeing one another through the things that divided us. We checked on our neighbors. We gave blood. We prayed together. We hung flags from our homes and businesses. We thanked first responders. We hugged our families a little tighter. There was an extraordinary sense of patriotism and a shared understanding that whatever our differences might be, we were Americans first.
We weren't Republicans versus Democrats, left versus right, or one group versus another.
We were Americans. One nation under God, indivisible.
I have said for years that while I would never wish another September 11 on this country, but I miss the America of September 12.
I especially miss it today. We live in an incredibly divided country right now. We seem increasingly willing to define one another by our differences and increasingly reluctant to remember everything we share. Maybe, on this 25th anniversary, honoring those we lost means remembering more than what happened on September 11. Maybe it also means remembering who we became on September 12 and in the months that followed.
There is now an entire generation that knows September 11 only through photographs, videos, history books and the stories we tell them, so we need to keep telling those stories. Tell them about the lives we lost, the firefighters climbing those stairs, the passengers of Flight 93, strangers helping strangers, and a wounded country that came together.
As a business owner, I am especially mindful of how fortunate I am to live in a country where I have had the freedom and opportunity to build something of my own, to work hard, to succeed, to fail, to try again, and to pursue a life of my choosing. Those freedoms are easy to take for granted. September 11 reminds me not to.
Twenty-five years later, I remain incredibly proud to be an American. I remain grateful for those who have sacrificed to protect the freedoms we enjoy, and I remain hopeful that we can find our way back to a little more of the America we were on September 12.
Maybe the best way we can honor those we lost is not only to never forget September 11, but also to remember September 12.
April J. Ferguson | CEO
Opveon Litigation Services, LLC
