09/11/2026
I took this picture years before 9/11. Today, looking at it, it feels like I’m looking at a photograph of another world.
I lived in the New York area my entire life until 2009. At the time of 9/11, I was a teacher. I remember hearing the explosion when the plane hit. As the reality of what was happening began to sink in, school was closed and parents rushed to pick up their children.
I had students who lost family that day. I had friends who never came home.
We all lost something that day.
I remember walking out of my building and seeing the smoke filling the skyline. When I eventually went home, this picture was hanging on my wall. I looked at it differently that day. Almost immediately, it looked like a picture from the past…a place and a time that no longer existed.
And I was right.
Life was never the same.
The days that followed were a blur of one heartbreaking story after another, mixed with stories of survivors, families who somehow made it out, and ordinary people who became heroes. Yellow ribbons appeared on trees. Strangers looked out for strangers. Communities came together in a way I had rarely seen in my lifetime.
For a little while, the things we so often use to divide ourselves didn’t seem to matter.
Race didn’t matter.
Age didn’t matter.
Gender didn’t matter.
Religion didn’t matter.
Politics didn’t matter.
Status didn’t matter.
What mattered was each other.
What mattered was life.
What mattered was being there for one another.
I remember thinking how beautiful that was. And honestly, I wish that feeling had never faded.
But, eventually, we went back to our divisions.
I’ve seen glimpses of that unity since then. I saw it here in the Smokies after the 2016 wildfires, when people who had nothing in common on paper came together to help their neighbors. No questions asked. Just people helping people.
And every time I see it, I’m reminded that it is still possible.
That’s what this picture means to me today. It’s a reminder of a time that once was…not just the New York that existed before 9/11, but the brief period afterward when so many of us remembered what it meant to truly be united.
And while I miss that time, I also have hope.
Because I’ve seen it happen!
I know we are capable of it!
I believe there will come a day when we look back at THIS divided time the same way I’m looking at this picture today…a reminder of a time that ONCE WAS.
A time when we WEREN’T united.
Imagine that.
Until then, maybe we can choose to be a little kinder, a little more understanding, and a little more willing to remember that beneath all the things that make us different, we’re still just people trying to make it through this life together.
Never forget. 🇺🇸
