There are certain days from childhood that remain strangely vivid. You may not remember every detail. You may not remember exactly what someone said or what time something happened. But you remember how the day felt.
September 11, 2001, is one of those days for me.
I was in the fourth grade.
I remember having a fire drill at school. I remember the adults trying to figure out what they were supposed to do with all of us. Eventually, we were moved away from the school and gathered together somewhere else while we waited for our parents to come pick us up.
I won't share the specific place we were taken because, for all I know, it could still be part of an emergency plan for children in that community. Twenty-five years later, keeping that information private seems far more important than including an unnecessary detail in a story.
But I remember being there.
And I remember praying.
I Knew God Was the only One who could do anything.
I was nine or ten years old. I certainly didn't understand terrorism, national security, foreign policy or everything that was unfolding in New York, Washington, D.C., and Pennsylvania.
But children understand more than we sometimes give them credit for.
I could see the adults.
I remember parents arriving to pick up their children, and I remember the panic on their faces. I remember looking at them and feeling like the world had ended.
The adults didn't have answers.
They didn't know what was going to happen next.
And somewhere in my fourth-grade mind, I understood something very simple:
God was the only One who could actually do anything about what was happening.
So I prayed.
My parents eventually came to get me. I remember getting into the car and driving home. It was a quiet car ride home. When we arrived, they pulled into our driveway and sat there talking while I remained in the backseat.
And I prayed again.
It's interesting what stays with you for twenty-five years.
I don't remember everything my parents said in that car. I don't remember every conversation the adults had that day.
But I remember sitting in that backseat.
And I remember praying.
Because when the adults couldn't fix it, when my parents couldn't fix it, when nobody could undo what had already happened or tell us with certainty what was going to happen next, I knew there was still Someone who was bigger than all of it.
And Then Came September 12
There is something else I remember almost as clearly as September 11.
I remember the next day.
It was quiet.
And people were so nice to each other.
That memory has stayed with me all these years.
People talked to people they normally wouldn't have talked to. People helped one another. People seemed to get along.
For a little while, the things that divided us didn't seem nearly as important.
And people turned to God.
People prayed.
Churches filled.
A country that was frightened, grieving and unsure of what would happen next looked toward God and toward one another. There was tremendous anger and unimaginable grief, of course. Thousands of families had just experienced losses that would forever divide their lives into a before and an after.
But I remember something else happening, too.
I remember kindness.
I remember unity.
I remember people caring about their neighbors.
I remember a country that prayed.
Twenty-Five Years Later
Twenty-five years have passed.
I'm not that fourth-grade girl anymore.
I'm a wife. I'm a mother. I'm a photographer. And I now understand so much more about what happened that day than I possibly could have understood sitting with my classmates waiting for my parents.
But some of the things that little girl understood were perhaps the most important things of all.
This year, twenty-five years after September 11, I had the opportunity to photograph the Mount Washington 9/11 Memorial.
I stood along Route 302 in New Hampshire beneath an incredibly dark sky, my camera pointed toward Mount Washington.
The mountain was almost completely silhouetted against the night.
Above it were stars.
And rising from the summit were two beams of light.
Two simple columns reaching upward into the darkness.
Through my camera, everything else disappeared.
The mountain became a silhouette. The stars filled the sky. And those two beams just kept going.
There are photographs we make because something is beautiful.
There are photographs we make because we want to remember a particular season of our lives.
And then there are photographs that represent something much larger than the person standing behind the camera. These are those photographs for me.
2,977 Lives.
Behind the memorial are real people.
On September 11, 2001, 2,977 victims were killed in the terrorist attacks.
They were someone's husband or wife.
Someone's mother or father.
Someone's son or daughter.
Someone's sibling, friend, coworker or neighbor.
There were people who went to work that morning expecting to come home.
There were people who boarded airplanes expecting to arrive at their destinations.
There were first responders who understood that other people were desperately trying to get out and chose to go in.
Twenty-five years can make an event feel like history.
For thousands of families, it isn't simply history.
It is part of their family story forever.
Children grew up without parents. Parents grew old without their children. Families celebrated birthdays, weddings, graduations and holidays with someone missing.
That's what Never Forget has to mean.
Not merely remembering an event.
Remembering the people.
I Also Don't Want to Forget September 12
When I look at these photographs, though, I keep coming back to something else.
I don't only want us to remember September 11.
I want us to remember September 12.
I want us to remember what it looked like when we realized how little some of our differences mattered.
I want us to remember people checking on their neighbors.
I want us to remember strangers helping strangers.
I want us to remember people being extraordinarily kind to one another.
And I want us to remember a country turning toward God.
We should never have needed something so horrific to remind us to love one another.
And we certainly shouldn't need another tragedy to remind us again.
Twenty-five years later, our world can feel incredibly divided. We can disagree about almost anything. Sometimes it feels as though we have forgotten how to disagree and still recognize the humanity of the person standing across from us.
But I remember seeing something different.
I saw it through the eyes of a fourth grader.
For a little while, people were just... kinder.
Two Beams in the Darkness
Maybe that's part of why these photographs mean so much to me.
Twenty-five years ago, I was a little girl sitting in the backseat of my parents' car praying because I knew God was the only One who could actually do anything about what was happening.
Twenty-five years later, I stood beside Route 302 with a camera in my hands, looking toward Mount Washington as two beams of light stretched into a sky filled with stars.
A lot of life happened between those two moments.
But I still believe what that little girl believed.
When the world feels frightening, when we don't have the answers, and when circumstances are far bigger than anything we can control, God still is.
So when I look at these photographs, I remember.
I remember the fear on the adults' faces.
I remember sitting with the other children.
I remember my parents coming to get me.
I remember that backseat.
I remember praying.
I remember September 12.
I remember people being kind.
I remember people coming together.
I remember people turning to God.
And I remember the 2,977 people who never got to see September 12.
Twenty-five years later, may we never forget September 11, 2001.
May we remember the lives that were lost.
May we remember the families who have carried those losses for twenty-five years.
May we remember the courage of those who ran toward danger.
May we remember to pray.
And maybe, in a world that could desperately use a little more of it, may we remember a little more of September 12, too.
Never forget. 🇺🇸
