09/11/2026
25 years ago today, I was 20-something, newly married, just starting out in my career — the same age as so many who didn’t come home that night.
I wasn’t a New Yorker, but my mom was, and my grandparents lived their whole lives in Brooklyn — my grandmother playing piano, my grandfather in a jazz band with her, working for the Daily News (or the Daily Planet according to me) before he passed. Through them, I have always felt connected to NY. 🫶
On the morning of September 11th, I was on the phone with my mom, watching our tiny TV (the kind where you had to angle the antenna just right) as she tried to explain what was happening. Then the second plane hit, live, right in front of us. We went silent. There were no words.
My mom passed last year, but that morning with her is one I’ll always hold onto — her voice, our disbelief at what we had witnessed, the two of us just sitting with it together.
That day all those years ago was beyond surreal, forever changed us. Today we remember what we lost as Americans, as neighbors and as families. We also remember what we shared — and how, in that moment, we came together to support, to love and honor what was lost.
