09/11/2026
I can still remember where I was on the morning of September 11, 2001.
I was in my first year of teaching, still finding my way in the classroom, and at home I was a new mom to my nine-month-old son. My daughter had not been born yet. As the news began to unfold, I remember trying to understand what we were witnessing and wondering what kind of world my little boy would grow up in.
Like so many Americans, I felt a fear and uncertainty I had never experienced before. For days and weeks afterward, it seemed to hang over everything.
One memory from those days has never left me.
I remember sitting on my back porch and looking up at the sky. Normally, seeing or hearing a plane overhead was something you barely noticed. But the sky was completely still. No planes. No familiar sounds overhead. They had all been grounded.
I just sat there looking up.
The silence felt so heavy. Our country had changed, and you could feel it even in something as simple as an empty sky.
Today, 25 years later, I think about the nearly 3,000 lives that were taken, the families who said goodbye that morning never knowing it would be the last time, and the first responders who ran toward danger while others were running away.
I also remember how, in the midst of tremendous grief and fear, Americans came together.
Today, we honor those we lost, those who answered the call to serve, and all whose lives were forever changed.
May we never forget. 🇺🇸
