September 11, 2001
I remember where I was.
I remember the phone call and hearing my little cousin’s voice saying “you need to come over, the planes are crashing”.
I remember watching the television.
I remember the shock, the disbelief, the images that seemed impossible to comprehend.
I remember the panic thinking of my friend that lived there and the family members that were vacationing there.
I knew it was tragic.
I knew it was catastrophic.
I knew the world had changed.
But I was younger and naive.
And as much as I understood what had happened, I don’t think I truly understood the grief.
Not the kind of grief that lives in your body.
Not the kind that takes your breath away.
Not the kind that makes you wake up one morning and realize the person you built your life around is simply not there anymore.
I know that grief now.
And because I do, September 11 feels different to me.
I find myself thinking about all those people who lost someone that day.
The husbands or wives who left for work that morning and never came home.
The person who suddenly became a widow or widower.
The parents who lost their children.
The children who went to school that morning and came home to a world without their mom or dad.
The people who had one last conversation, one last kiss, one last “I love you,” never knowing it would be their last.
And I wonder what those families must have been thinking and feeling—not just that day, but in the days, months and years that followed.
Because grief doesn’t end when the headlines do.
It doesn’t end when the memorials are built.
It doesn’t end when everyone else eventually goes back to their normal lives.
The world moves forward.
The world changed for everyone that day.
But for those people it is forever divided into before and after.
Oh, how I understand that now.
I know what it’s like to have a life that once felt so certain suddenly become something completely different.
I know what it’s like to lose your person.
To look around and realize that the future you imagined together has changed.
To carry memories that are simultaneously your greatest comfort and your greatest source of pain.
To have moments when you’re laughing, living, making plans—and then suddenly remember the person who should be beside you.
And I especially think about the mothers and fathers who were left behind to raise their children without their partner.
Because that’s a grief I understand on another level now.
When September 11 happened, I could empathize with those families.
Today, I feel like I understand them.
And there’s a difference.
I don’t say that because I believe my loss is the same as theirs. It isn’t. Every loss is its own story. Every person we lose leaves behind a completely unique hole.
But grief has given me a language I didn’t have before.
It has taught me what it means to miss someone with your entire body.
It has taught me that you can be grateful for the life you had and still be devastated that it ended.
That you can keep living while simultaneously carrying a part of yourself that will always belong to the person you lost.
And perhaps that’s what I think about most on September 11.
Not only the lives that were lost that day, but the lives that continued afterward.
The spouses who had to figure out how to live alone in a much scarier world.
The parents who had to become both parents.
The children who had to grow up without someone they desperately wanted beside them.
The families who had to learn how to celebrate again while carrying an enormous sadness with them.
Twenty-five years later, the world remembers September 11 and the devastation that came to the entire world.
But for those who lost someone, I imagine they don’t need a date on the calendar to remember.
They remember every day.
And now, as a grieving widow, I understand something I couldn’t have understood when I was younger:
The tragedy isn’t only the moment someone dies.
It’s all the moments afterward.
It’s every moment they were supposed to be there but weren’t.
It’s the life that continues, even though a piece of the life you knew ended that day.
And it’s learning, somehow, to carry both the love and the loss.
So today, September 11, I think of the people who were left behind in a world that we didn’t know anymore.
The widows.
The widowers.
The parents.
The children.
The families.
And I hope they know that even after all these years, there are people who remember—not only those who were lost, but those who were left behind and had to learn how to live without them.
Because now I understand that this is a story of its own.
And it is one of the hardest stories there is to live, yet somehow one of the easiest to forget.
We don’t stop loving them. We simply learn how to carry that love differently.
Today, I think of every person who lost someone on that fateful day.
I think of the lives that were taken, but also of the lives that were forever changed.
May those who perished on that fateful day be at peace.
And may the people they left behind know that they are remembered, too.
May they be okay.
May they have found moments of peace.
May they still feel the love of the people they lost.
Because sometimes, the greatest part of loving someone is simply learning how to carry them with you when you can no longer hold their hand.
And today, I carry a little more understanding for all of them
xo LM
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