September 11: Remembering a Day That Changed Everything

Nicholas Mistretta

Twenty-five years later, the words “Never Forget” remain as important as ever.

For those of us who lived through September 11, 2001, the date does not require explanation. We remember where we were. We remember the images. We remember the uncertainty. We remember watching something unimaginable unfold in real time and slowly realizing that the world we had known when we woke up that morning was gone.

But history has a way of becoming more distant with each passing generation.

There are now adults who were not yet born on September 11. For them, 9/11 is something learned in school, seen in documentaries or encountered through photographs and recordings. That is natural. Every generation eventually inherits events it did not personally experience.

But while there is still an entire generation here that did live through it, we have an obligation to keep telling the story. Not simply what happened that morning, but what it felt like.

I was in New York City that day.

The photographs accompanying this remembrance are a few that I took myself. They are not professional images. They are simply fragments of what I saw — moments from a day I never imagined I would witness and certainly never wanted to document.

I spent much of my working life in New York City, and I have often said that the city gave me experiences I could never have gotten anywhere else.

I met people from every possible walk of life. Characters you could only meet in New York. I saw incredible things, strange things, funny things and things that became stories I would tell for the rest of my life.

I would not trade those experiences for anything.

Except this one.

September 11 changed my life, as it did the lives of millions of others. And as horrific as that day was, in some ways the days and weeks that followed were even harder. That is something photographs of the towers falling cannot fully convey. The smoke did not simply disappear when the television coverage ended. Neither did the fear, sadness or uncertainty.

For those who worked in or regularly traveled through the city, the aftermath became part of everyday life.

The missing-person posters.

The photographs taped to walls and fences.

The faces of families searching for someone who was never coming home.

The smell that lingered.

The altered skyline.

The armed security.

The constant reminders that thousands of people had simply gone to work one morning and never returned.

And then there was the silence.

New York is not supposed to be quiet. But there were moments during those days when a city famous for noise seemed almost unnaturally still. It was the worst thing I have ever experienced. Yet amid all of that horror, there was something else worth remembering.

People helped one another.

Police officers, firefighters, emergency personnel, construction workers, medical professionals and countless ordinary citizens stepped forward without knowing what might happen next.

Strangers talked to strangers.

People checked on one another.

Flags appeared everywhere.

For a period of time, differences that had seemed so important suddenly did not seem nearly as important anymore. There was simply a shared understanding that something terrible had happened to all of us.

Twenty-five years later, some of those memories have inevitably softened around the edges. Time does that.

But the significance of September 11 should not.

Nearly 3,000 people were killed that day. Behind that number were mothers and fathers, husbands and wives, sons and daughters, friends, coworkers and neighbors.

They woke up on an ordinary Tuesday morning. That may be one of the most haunting parts of the story. It began as an ordinary day. That is why remembering matters.

We remember the people who were lost.

We remember those who ran toward danger when everyone else was trying to escape it.

We remember the families whose lives were permanently changed.

We remember the men and women who spent months working at Ground Zero and whose health would later suffer because of it.

And those of us who were there remember something that is much harder to put into words — the feeling of watching the world change in a matter of hours.

Someday, September 11 will exist entirely in history books and recorded memories. Those who witnessed it firsthand will no longer be here to explain what it felt like.

Until then, we should keep telling the story. We should show the photographs. We should answer the questions. We should remind younger generations that these were not simply buildings collapsing on an old news broadcast.

There were people inside them.

There were families waiting for phone calls.

There were first responders climbing stairs.

There was an entire nation watching, grieving and wondering what came next.

Twenty-five years later, we remember.

For those who were there.

For those who lost someone.

For those who came home changed.

And most importantly, for those who never came home at all.

September 11, 2001.

Never forget.

Photo Credit: Nicholas Mistretta/headlinenewsmontgomery.com