My 9/11 Story — When Two Major Events Collide

I can remember my mom telling me about where she was and what she was doing on November 22, 1963, the day President John Kennedy was assassinated. She was a young housewife at home, taking care of that house and watching "As the World Turns," when Walter Cronkite broke in to tell the world that Kennedy had been shot. She said she tried to call my dad and could not get through; all the phone lines were jammed. For those of us who watched the horror of September 11, 2001, either on the streets of New York City or live on television, we did the same thing. This is my story.

25 years later, we will #neverforget911 pic.twitter.com/xlar3dX9s7

— 9/11 Memorial & Museum (@Sept11Memorial) September 11, 2026

In my former life, I was a Pharmacy Technician. For most of that life, I worked second shift in hospital settings, usually 2:30 PM to 11:00 PM. Needless to say, I wasn't up as early as most folks. But like any other Tuesday, I was up around 9 AM. Like most days, I turned the radio on right before 11:00 AM (I'm in Central Time in St. Louis) to tune in to Rush Limbaugh. I didn't get Rush; I got local news guys talking about closings and cancellations as if there were six inches of snow on the ground. I turned on the TV and, of course, saw what they were talking about. 

What gives my story a bit of a twist is that I was three weeks away from getting married. My now-husband Randy and I were living in my tiny condominium that was now cluttered with boxes of reception decorations, a bag of returned RSVP invitations, and a datebook that was keeping all the things I had left to do before the big day on track. 

A little while later, my mom called to see if I knew what was happening. I told her I did. We talked for a few more minutes, and perhaps it was the collective instinct of every American that morning to say "I love you" to your loved ones because we both did at the same time. I called Randy and told him to come home. At that point, no one knew what was coming next. 

25 years later, 250 years later, and forevermore, our flag will fly for justice and freedom.

God bless our 9/11 families and our brave first responders. pic.twitter.com/gvhhTSzMHo

— The White House (@WhiteHouse) September 11, 2026

Like every other American household, we just watched TV until we both went to work that afternoon. Once I got there, in the days of cell phone infancy, a TV we often used for continuing education programs in the pharmacy had been wheeled out of storage and hooked up so we could keep up with what was happening. We worked and kept things running, but with one eye on that TV. When I would go up on the floors to deliver meds, I would occasionally stop in the hall outside of patient rooms where I could see TVs. 

When we got home that night, we saw those eerie nighttime images of Ground Zero. Smoke still rising from the wreckage, enhanced by the spotlights on those working feverishly to find any trace of survivors. I don't know about anyone else, but I could feel exhaustion, mental and physical, coming from the TV screen.

We are all different people 25 years later than we were that day. On a personal level, our lives have changed. I became a wife, graduated from college at age 57, and changed careers. My fellow Americans have also changed jobs and careers, became spouses, parents, and grandparents. But we have changed in other profound ways as well. The world is a much more dangerous place, and often the people we elect don't seem to share the sense of urgency that we do about it. Instead, they want to be nice to people who have said outright that they want to kill us. 

Never Forget 9-11 #TwinTowers 🙏 pic.twitter.com/k0F2MnfIjF

— Scott Baio (@ScottBaio) September 11, 2026

I didn't get into politics until years later with the Tea Party. But it may have been 9/11 that lit my own personal inner spark. So many people wonder if we will ever be who we were as a nation on September 12, 2001, ever again- the unity we felt simply because we were Americans. I don't know. But I wish I did, so I had it to look forward to.  

What I do know is that we must keep the memories and the facts of that day alive to teach those who weren't around what happened and, more importantly, why. But not just the pictures and the stories we have seen before, but our own pictures and our stories too.

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