Twenty-five years have passed since September 11, 2001, yet for so many of us, the memories of that day remain remarkably clear.
We remember where we were. Who called us. What we saw when we turned on the television. The people we worried about. The uncertainty of not knowing what would happen next.
And we remember how the world seemed to change in a matter of hours.
As we mark the 25th anniversary of September 11, we asked residents and team members across MBK Senior Living to share what they remember. Their experiences span different cities, countries and circumstances, but together they reflect tremendous loss as well as courage, compassion and the ways people cared for one another in the days that followed.
For Bob L., a resident at The Bellettini, the experience was firsthand.
Bob was living on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. He remembers that September morning as a beautiful one. Before leaving for the gym, he and his wife heard that a plane had struck the World Trade Center.
“I thought it was an accident,” Bob recalled.
They decided to go downtown to see what was happening. What Bob witnessed there was something he says has never left him.
For Diane G., also a resident at The Bellettini, the day began about 45 minutes outside Manhattan in River Vale, New Jersey. She and her husband were preparing to leave for North Carolina when her daughter called to say she wasn't going into the city that day.
In their town of approximately 10,000 people, three lives were lost.
As Diane and her husband eventually made their way south, she remembers the unusual emptiness of the skies and stopping overnight at a motel where everyone was gathered around televisions.
“Everybody had stories,” she recalled.
Thousands of miles away, Anne Paine, Director of Wellness Programming at Mountlake Terrace Plaza, was living in Malaysia. Her work regularly brought her to New York, and she had been there just three weeks earlier.
Because of the time difference, it was already the evening when calls from her husband and brother told her to turn on the television. Messages began arriving from colleagues and friends in New York letting her know they were safe.
Anne watched the coverage from across the world.
“The whole world had eyes on New York, watching in disbelief,” she said.
Amid the shock and devastation, she was struck by the response that followed.
“What stayed with me most was how people came together. New York, a city that can feel so busy and chaotic, suddenly became a city of compassion, courage, rescue and unity.”
She speaks especially of the firefighters and first responders who ran toward danger to help others, many of whom never returned home.
That commitment to honoring first responders continues at Mountlake Terrace Plaza today. Each September 11 at 9:11 a.m., the community sounds an alarm, observes a minute of silence and offers a prayer for those who lost their lives and those who responded.
For Jocelynne Brush, Director of Sales at The Creekside, September 11 also brings to mind an extraordinary act of kindness that unfolded far from New York.
Originally from Canada and now living in Washington, Jocelynne thinks of Gander, Newfoundland, where 38 planes were diverted after U.S. airspace closed. Nearly 7,000 stranded passengers suddenly arrived in a town with a population of fewer than 10,000.
Residents opened their homes. They prepared meals, provided clothing and sat with strangers who were frightened and far from home.
“It has always made me so incredibly proud of my Canadian roots to know how quickly folks stepped up to be there for our American neighbors when it mattered most,” Jocelynne shared.
September 11 also changed the course of some lives in ways that would not become apparent until years later.
Michelle Worcester, Executive Director at Northgate Plaza, had just returned home from New York with her two young children on September 9. They had originally been scheduled to fly home on September 11 but changed their plans.
Two days later, Michelle heard her boys yelling from downstairs that “the world was ending.”
What they witnessed that morning stayed with her family. Michelle says the day profoundly affected one of her sons, who decided while still young that he wanted to serve his country. At 18, he enlisted in the Army.
And I have my own small memory of that morning.
At the time, I was living in Los Angeles, pregnant with my first child and working at a movie studio in Hollywood. My husband was traveling, and I was still home when my mother called and told me to turn on the television.
Alone in my living room, I watched with horror as the events unfolded.
We were told not to come to work. In those first uncertain hours, there were fears that Hollywood could be another target. Nobody knew what might happen next.
After the towers fell, I didn't know what to do. So I did what everyone in Los Angeles seems to do when there's a disaster. I walked to the supermarket and bought water.
It is such an ordinary detail, but twenty-five years later, I still remember it.
More than anything, though, I remember the fear and the grief. I was afraid because I was alone. I was afraid of the world my unborn child would be born into. And I grieved the people we lost that day and the feeling of security that seemed to disappear with them.
Perhaps that is part of why September 11 remains so vivid for so many of us. The scale of what happened was almost impossible to comprehend, yet our memories of it are often deeply personal.
A phone call from a mother.
Children calling from downstairs.
A silent sky.
Strangers gathered around a motel television.
Messages from friends thousands of miles away saying they were safe.
People opening their homes to stranded travelers.
First responders running toward people who needed them.
Twenty-five years later, we remember nearly 3,000 people who lost their lives on September 11, 2001, and the many others whose lives were forever changed.
Across our communities, that remembrance takes many forms. At The Commons at Union Ranch, residents have been invited to record their own memories in a reflection book, alongside a remembrance display and a moment of silence. At Mountlake Terrace Plaza, the alarm will sound again at 9:11 a.m.
The memories are different. What remains is shared.
We remember those we lost. We honor those who served and sacrificed. And we remember that in a moment of extraordinary fear and grief, people reached for one another.
In the days that followed, differences seemed smaller and what we shared seemed greater. Americans came together as neighbors, as communities and as one country. Twenty-five years later, one of the lessons worth carrying forward is that sense of unity and the understanding that, even when we disagree, we belong to one another.
Perhaps that, too, is something worth holding onto.
