09/11/2026
For the first twenty-one years of my life, history was a concept.
Sometimes it was a class and a lot of books.
Sure, bad things had happened in the world. I vaguely remember being in our school library when they announced Operation Desert Storm. And of course our parents talked about the things they'd lived through. Hurricane Betsy came up a lot.
September 11th, 2001 was the first time I got the sense that I was living through history.
My Aunt Angie had an outpatient procedure scheduled that day and had asked if I would drive her to Charity Hospital in New Orleans. I woke up later than usual. I rolled out of bed and stumbled to the television set, still groggy. When the screen came to life, I saw the World Trade Center; the first tower burning.
Three years earlier, I'd seen it in person. We were nineteen and taking our first adult trip. No adults; we were certainly not deserving of the title back then.
We went to New York City during Thanksgiving, taking in all the sights. The Empire State Building, Chinatown, Greenwich Village, City Park, the Statue of Liberty. It was from the platform on Liberty Island that I'd gotten my first full view of the World Trade Center. Twin towers rising above the highest rises of the city that never sleeps.
I took a photo of the cityscape with my mother's point and shoot camera. Photography hadn't quite gotten its hooks into me yet, but I thought an adventure in New York with the boys was reason enough to document it. Three years later, I would have a new reason to be glad I'd brought the camera along.
Those towers weren't concepts on a television set. I'd been there. I'd seen them. I held the proof in my hands.
The rest of the days events unfolded on the sh*tty hospital waiting room television. The tv set was locked off so no one could steal it or throw a chair and break it. There was no way to change the channel. Not that it mattered. The footage was on every station.
Nothing felt real.
I sat in that chair for hours. Hours. First with my Aunt, sitting in silence and watching the horrific images replay. Later, when my Aunt was getting her procedure done, I sat by myself.
Silence, time and trauma are an explosive cocktail when you have an active imagination.
A few months earlier, I'd been accepted as an intern in the Disney College Program for the Spring, 2022 semester. I wondered if that were still a possiblity? By that time, we knew the terrorists had tried to destroy the Pentagon as well. What would be next on the list? Walt Disney World has no strategic value, but if you want to terrorize and demoralize a population, blowing up Cinderella's Caste seemed like it would be quite the message.
Later, someone on the news suggested a variety of possible targets. New Orleans was on the list. I never thought that was likely, but it was hard to be confident about anything anymore.
The lives lost in September 11th and the first responders who were taken in the ensuing years were the worst thing about that day. But if I had to choose the second biggest loss, it would be our innocence. The terrorists stole the illusion of safety. America was no longer an impregnable fortress.
How could I have been twenty-one years old and be so naive to the world?
That day was filled with terror and pain. It seemed like the end of the world.
But then September 12th happened. And September 13th. And September 14th. And something miraculous happened. We, the people of the United States of America came together. We weren't the Left or the Right. We weren't black or white or yellow or brown. We weren't gay or straight or anything in between.
We. Were. Americans.
What a terrible thing for anyone born from 2001 on. They'll never know what it's like to see your fellow American as a person, not a member of whatever tribe you've arbitrarily decided is evil. They will never know what it is like to truly stand side by side with random strangers and say “we will not back down. We will not break. And we will never forget.”
Maybe that's the real second tragedy. We forgot. We forgot what it meant to be American.
Maybe one day we’ll remember once again.
