It really was just a normal day. At a little after 7 a.m., just before I was about to head out for my sixth day as a senior in high school, the only things of any real significance to me were the news of Michael Jordan coming back to the NBA (to play for the Washington Wizards, of which he had been a part owner) and the score of the previous night’s Monday Night Football game (the Denver Broncos over the New York Giants, 31-20).

I don’t remember anything about any of my classes going into that day other than in band, we were learning the Star Wars theme for a halftime show to be called “2001: A Space Odyssey.” That would soon change.

To recap, SportsCenter headlines and what I was doing in band are of long memory, and the rest of high school up to that morning has faded from history. That sounds about right.

A little more than an hour later, during Spanish class, we got a rare PA announcement from the principal announcing breaking news. 

The news was that a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center. I remember thinking at the time it seemed unusual to make a big deal out of that, as it had happened before. 

Some recent Google searching hasn’t found anything to confirm that, so I’m not sure what I was thinking about at the time. 

That announcement must have been after the second crash because a few moments later, the teacher from next door came into the classroom, tissue in hand, tears on face, to say that a plane had hit the Pentagon as well.  

Things had just gotten real even though a lot of people weren’t using that phrase yet.

The rest of the day felt like I was living inside of a disaster movie.

In most of my classes, we watched the ongoing news coverage (save for the one class that had weak rabbit ears on the TV so we could only hear the coverage amid the “snow flying”).

I remember a brief thought of immature humor among my friends and me of wanting to take the remote control during one of the classes, ask “what else is on?,” and change the channel. We didn’t. I’d like to think we were just desperate to lighten the mood.

I remember a foreign exchange student from Germany, who was with us the year before, calling on the classroom phone during my calculus class to try to get our perspective on what was going on. I was disappointed the teacher wouldn’t let me talk to him myself.

I remember going home after school, more news coverage ongoing, and feeling fully in disaster movie mode trying to accept the realities of all that happened.

I remember the lines of vehicles lined up quite a ways down the road from the gas station, as many people decided all at once to top off even though they’d be dealing with impulsively higher prices. 

These, and others, are things I haven’t forgotten and probably never will.

They probably don’t count when people and graphics say “Never forget” around this time of the year, but I can only work with what I’ve got.

The impact of a day

For people around-ish my age, September 11, 2001, was our December 7, 1941, or our November 22, 1963.

It’s a day that’s easy to look back on and say everything was “different” or “better” before everything that happened happened.

I don’t know how many times I’ve seen or heard the exact or close-to phrase of “in our post-9/11 world,” but such a world may exist.

That day, nearly 25 years ago, had different impacts for different people.

Is it better to dwell on what things were like before it, or what they’ve become after it?

For those born after that day, 9/11 might not have a lot of significance because all they know is a world where the towers fell, the Pentagon was attacked, and a plane was crashed in Pennsylvania that could have had an even more serious outcome had it reached another destination.

Others remember a world where it was less of a pain to get on an airplane, a world where we didn’t think we were being surveilled all the time, or a world where not as many things could be seen as potential terrorism.

I’m not saying that world was better or worse. I’m also not saying things are exactly better or exactly worse now.

I am saying that for everything we’ve gained post-9/11, we’ve lost an equal amount, good and bad. 

We may have been entering a new world anyway, post-turn of the millennium, but 9/11/2001 might have gotten us there quicker.

Accepting the present

Soon it will be September 11, 2026. We’ll see all of the “old” images of the planes, the towers, the wreckage, the first responders who risked (and lost) their lives, and the pictures of the people who were in the buildings and planes and didn’t ask for any of it, and we’ll hear all of their names.

We’ll remember and be urged to “never forget.”

We’ll never forget the mistakes that were made leading up to that day, and we’ll never forget the mistakes that were made in the days and years following it.

We’ll never forget what was good before 8:46 a.m. Eastern Time on that day, and we’ll never forget what’s still been good in the years following all that happened — God didn’t stop blessing us in the past 25 years.

September 11, 2026, will unite the mourning, the cynical, the reflective, and the apathetic through their respective reactions and responses to the milestone anniversary. 

Politicians, creatives, and anyone else with a voice or a keyboard will all have something to say.

Twenty-five years hasn’t been long enough to forget any of it. Most of us never will.

Thank you for reading.

I’m praying for you.