By T. Michele Walker
It’s been twenty-five years, yet who can forget that day? If you lived in the Northeast area of the United States on September 11, 2001, you’ll always remember that crisp, perfect autumn morning, with clear skies, cool air, not a hint of humidity.
I woke up that day thinking, “This is perfect sweater weather,” and I threw on my favorite. My kids had already gone off to school, and I was just heading to a doctor’s appointment. It felt like any other ordinary day.
But if you lived through it, you know how quickly everything changed. At 8:46 a.m., the first plane crashed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center, and that sense of comfort and routine shattered instantly.
The confusion that followed was overwhelming. We struggled to make sense of what was unfolding; panic and fear crept in. I rushed to my kids’ school, a small, red-brick building in Shepherdstown, West Virginia, a bedroom community outside of Washington, D.C.
I remember seeing the principal standing outside, speaking quietly with a man in a dark coat. The school was on lockdown, and the principal was handing students off one by one.
As the principal went back inside, the man in the coat turned to me. “You know what today is?” he asked. I don’t remember what I muttered, but he went on: “It’s September 11. 9-1-1. That’s significant. Our lives will never be the same after this.” Then he told me he was supposed to be at the Pentagon that morning, but something had come up. Pure chance.
When my children came out, I struggled to find the words to explain why I was bringing them home so early. I have no idea of what I said. We were all in a state of shock.
The next few days unfolded in a blur. Like so many people, I was glued to the TV, watching, re-watching. The sight of the second plane hitting, seeing the towers collapse, and the desperate faces on those missing-person posters in New York. I remember the firefighters and police officers racing up those burning stairwells, knowing full well they probably wouldn’t make it out again.
I couldn’t help but think back to my younger days living in New York City, working as a temp at the World Trade Center. I wondered how many other temps were there that morning, just called in for the day. Pure chance.
By the numbers: 2,977 victims died in the attacks, not counting the 19 hijackers.
At the World Trade Center, 2,753 people died, including people in the Twin Towers and those on the ground.
At the Pentagon, 184 people lost their lives. That count includes 125 civilians and military personnel in the building, plus 59 people on American Airlines Flight 77.
On United Flight 93, the plane that crashed in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, 40 passengers and crew members died.
Many people would later share their stories of how they missed their flight that morning, or how they were late to work, and survived. Others filled in for co-workers that day, and were among the dead. Pure chance.
Fred Rogers’ words come to mind: “When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, ‘Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.’ To this day, especially in times of ‘disaster,’ I remember my mother’s words, and I am always comforted by realizing that there are still so many helpers—so many caring people in this world.”
On that day, there were so many helpers. Heroes. The numbers are sobering: 343 FDNY firefighters died trying to save lives. The Port Authority lost 37 officers, and the NYPD lost 23 more. Eight emergency medical service personnel were killed, too.
In the years since, thousands have battled illnesses or died from the toxic dust they breathed while working at Ground Zero. The casualties were staggering. But one loss that’s more difficult to measure is the loss of our sense of safety, something we once took for granted, vanished that morning.
Now, every year, we pause and remember. At first, it was impossible to imagine forgetting. We see the stickers, the yard signs: “Never forget.” But the world changes. Over 100 million Americans have been born since that day, according to the National September 11 Memorial & Museum. They don’t have memories of that morning. They learn about it in school, from documentaries and photographs, from the memories of people who were there.
What once divided time into “before” and “after” is slowly becoming history, fading, yet always present. There are annual rituals: the reading of the names, the twin beams of memorial light, retelling the stories of heroism and loss.
A Pew survey in 2016 found that three-quarters of Americans considered 9/11 one of the ten most significant events in their lives. For nearly one in five, the response to the attacks was a moment of national pride.
But events shift and take on different meanings. September 11 has shaped politics, foreign policy, and even our own identities as Americans. At its heart, though, it will always be a story of ordinary people facing unimaginable circumstances and showing extraordinary courage.
Twenty-five years later, the pain hasn’t disappeared. September 11 changed us, and that change is still unfolding. We remember, we honor the lives lost, and the sacrifices made, and we keep the promise to never forget.
