25 years

Today is Friday, September 11, 2026 — the 25th anniversary of September 11, 2001.

I remember that morning vividly. I was teaching first and second grade. Before I left for work, I sat on the couch in my living room and watched smoke rise from the first tower. Nobody seemed to know what had happened. I thought maybe a small propeller plane had hit the building by accident.

I went to work. By the time I reached the teachers' lounge, the second plane had hit. Later, the towers fell. Everything changed — our country, our world, our collective memory.

I remember riding the bus home that afternoon, how eerily quiet everything was. I remember the prayer vigils, the grounded airplanes, the Yankees coming back to play after baseball had stopped for days. Twenty-five years later, those memories are still with me.

Now I work alongside staff who were four and five years old that day. Some hadn't been born yet. For them, September 11 is history. For a lot of us, it's still something we can see and hear and feel.

On Fridays I write about my glimmers — the moments of goodness and gratitude that showed up during the week. Today I find myself asking whether it's even responsible to go looking for a glimmer in the middle of that much evil and loss.

But maybe the glimmer is the people who responded.

People ran toward the danger to pull strangers out. People risked their lives, and some lost them, trying to help someone they had never met. Their courage doesn't erase the tragedy. It does mean evil didn't get the last word.

Sometimes glimmers aren't cheerful or easy. Sometimes they're the people who stand in the face of tragedy and keep helping.

That's the glimmer I remember today.

Who have you watched run toward the thing everyone else was running from?