What We Carry Forward: 25 Years Later

Twenty-five years.

Twenty-five years since a Tuesday morning changed countless lives, our country, and the world forever.

Seven years ago, I wrote a post about the way we remember September 11th. I wrote it from a place of frustration—frustration with the performative ways tragedy can sometimes be shared, with the endless circulation of horrific images, and with people inserting themselves into stories that were never theirs to tell.

At the heart of it, though, I was trying to say something that still matters deeply to me:

Remember the people. Respect the grief. Don’t make someone else’s pain about you.

As we mark the 25th anniversary, I found myself returning to that post and wondering how I would write it now.

The truth?

I don’t think I need to rewrite it.

I think I just need to sit beside it for a minute.

You can read the original post here: [Hallowed Ground].

I’m sharing it again because the questions I was wrestling with in 2019 still matter. But I’m also sharing it with the perspective that comes from seven more years of life, loss, joy, growth, and complicated emotions.

Because seven years changes a person.

The older I get, the more I realize there is no perfect way to remember something that changed the world.

Some people share the stories because they don’t want them forgotten.

Some people watch the footage because they remember exactly where they were.

Some people avoid it altogether because they can’t bear to relive it.

Some people post.

Some people stay quiet.

Some people were there.

Some people lost someone.

And now, perhaps most strikingly on this 25th anniversary, there is an entire generation of adults who weren’t even alive when September 11th happened. They know it only through documentaries, history books, photographs, stories, and the memories we choose to share with them.

Maybe remembrance doesn’t always have to look the same.

But I still believe this:

We should be thoughtful about the way we carry someone else’s grief.

Twenty-five years is a lifetime to some people.

It’s long enough for children born after September 11th to become adults. Long enough for memories to fade around the edges. Long enough for history to become something younger generations learn about rather than something they personally remember.

But for the people who lost someone that day?

Twenty-five years doesn’t erase an empty chair.

It doesn’t replace a voice they wish they could hear.

It doesn’t make a birthday, anniversary, graduation, wedding, or ordinary Tuesday any less meaningful when someone they love isn’t there to experience it.

Time moves forward.

Grief doesn’t always move the same way.

And maybe that is one of the things I’ve learned most since writing the original version of this post:

Remembering isn’t about staying stuck in the past. Sometimes, remembering is how we make sure the past still teaches us something.

I mentioned in my original post that I witnessed a childhood friend learn that his father was on one of the planes.

Years later, we talked about it again.

I asked him what he felt.

He told me he hoped his dad was proud of him.

That he missed him.

And that people need to realize how quickly a life can change.

That has stayed with me all these years.

Because he’s right.

We spend so much time believing we have more time.

More time to call someone.

More time to forgive.

More time to say what we really mean.

More time to visit.

More time to become the person we’ve been waiting to become.

And sometimes life reminds us—brutally and without permission—that tomorrow was never promised.

That doesn’t mean we should live in fear.

I think it means we should live awake.

Wake up to the people around us.

To the small moments we’re usually too distracted to notice.

To the fact that the person standing next to us may be carrying something we know absolutely nothing about.

To the people we love who deserve to hear how much they matter while they’re still here to hear it.

The events of September 11th will always be horrific, heartbreaking, and difficult to comprehend. And for the families who lost someone, the first responders who ran toward danger, the survivors, and the people who continue to live with the physical and emotional aftermath—it isn’t just something they remember once a year.

It’s part of their story every day.

That deserves our respect.

But when I look back at what I wrote in 2019, there is another part that still stands out to me.

I asked:

What if we lived every day like it was September 12, 2001?

And honestly?

Twenty-five years later, I think I still want to know.

Not because September 12th was somehow perfect.

It wasn’t.

The grief was unimaginable. The fear was still there. People were trying to understand a world that had changed overnight.

But there was something else, too.

People showed up.

They checked on their neighbors.

They donated blood.

They volunteered.

They helped strangers.

They held each other a little tighter.

For a moment, it felt like we collectively remembered something that we seem to forget far too often:

We belong to each other.

Not in the sense that we have to agree.

Not in the sense that we have to think the same, vote the same, live the same, believe the same, or understand every choice someone else makes.

But in the sense that we are all human.

And humanity should count for something.

I think that’s the lesson I’ve held onto most as I’ve gotten older.

We are so quick to decide who deserves our kindness.

We offer grace to people who think like us.

We defend people we understand.

We make room for the people who make us comfortable.

But what if kindness wasn’t something people had to earn?

What if we stopped assuming we knew someone’s entire story based on one moment?

What if we spent less time trying to win every conversation and more time trying to understand each other?

What if we stopped treating compassion like weakness?

What if we actually did something with all the things we say matter to us?

What if we remembered that being loud isn’t the same thing as being right—and being quiet isn’t the same thing as not caring?

Twenty-five years later, September 11th remains hallowed ground.

And maybe the greatest responsibility of those of us who remember it firsthand is not simply to tell younger generations what happened.

It’s to help them understand what came after.

The humanity.

The courage.

The heartbreak.

The helpers.

The strangers who became family.

The ordinary people who ran toward danger.

The reminder that even in the darkest moments imaginable, people are still capable of showing up for one another.

Because “Never Forget” should mean more than remembering where we were when the towers fell.

It should mean remembering how fragile life is.

Remembering that ordinary mornings can become extraordinary memories.

Remembering that the people we love need to hear it while they’re still here.

Remembering that community matters.

Remembering that hatred has consequences.

Remembering that courage often looks like ordinary people doing extraordinary things when everything around them is falling apart.

And remembering that sometimes the greatest way we can honor those we’ve lost isn’t with a post.

Sometimes it’s with a phone call.

A donation.

A conversation.

An act of service.

A moment of patience.

A decision to put our phones down and actually be present with the people sitting in front of us.

Sometimes it’s choosing kindness when being cruel would be easier.

Sometimes it’s helping someone without needing anyone else to know about it.

Sometimes it’s simply remembering that none of us are guaranteed another day.

So this update isn’t an attempt to replace what I wrote seven years ago.

It’s a way of placing those words in a new context.

I still believe in what I wrote then.

I also understand more now.

More about how much room grief requires.

More about how differently people remember.

More about how important it is to approach someone else’s pain with humility.

And maybe that’s what growth is.

Not looking back at who you were and deciding she was wrong.

But sitting beside her.

Understanding where she was coming from.

Recognizing what she got right.

Acknowledging what life has taught you since.

And allowing yourself to say:

I understand this differently now.

Twenty-five years later, we cannot change what happened.

We cannot bring people back.

We cannot undo the pain.

But we can decide what we carry forward.

I hope we carry forward more kindness.

More courage.

More compassion.

More community.

More understanding.

I hope we remember that life can change in an instant.

That tomorrow is not guaranteed.

That the people we love deserve to know it.

That strangers can become helpers.

That ordinary people can become heroes.

That humanity is still possible—even when the world feels divided, angry, loud, and impossibly far apart.

So yes.

Never forget.

But don’t just remember the tragedy.

Remember the humanity.

Remember the courage.

Remember the people who showed up.

Remember the strangers who became helpers.

Remember the people who ran toward danger when everyone else was running away.

Remember the families who still carry empty spaces at their tables.

And then, when tomorrow comes—because for many of us, thankfully, it will—do something with that remembrance.

Call someone.

Forgive someone.

Help someone.

Love someone.

Be the reason another person feels like they matter.

Because maybe the best way to honor the people we lost is to take better care of the people who are still here.

And maybe that’s the wisdom I didn’t quite have seven years ago:

We cannot change what happened. We cannot bring people back. We cannot undo the pain.

But we can decide what we carry forward.

That, to me, is worth remembering.

Always.