No matter how long you live, there are certain moments in your life that will never fade from memory. Not just the personal ones — your first day at school, your wedding, the births of your children, or the time you smashed your dad’s car into the neighbor’s mailbox. But the historic events: Pearl Harbor (for the most senior of us), VE Day, the first moon landing, or the assassination of President Kennedy.

Another such event happened 25 years ago today; and you didn’t have to be in New York, Washington, or Shanksville, Pennsylvania — or even in the United States — for it to be permanently imprinted on your brain in the most minute detail.

It’s hard to believe that an entire generation has been born and reached adulthood since that day, because I can still relive every second of it, with all of the attendant emotion, as if it were happening now.

It was a bright, sunny, cloudless day, with just the first hint of early fall in the air. I was driving from my home in Falls Church, Virginia, to my office in the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, D.C., along U.S. Route 50, listening to my favorite FM radio station and thinking about the projects waiting for me in the office. Suddenly the music was interrupted by a news flash. Impossibly, a commercial plane had just flown into one of the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York.

And I thought: “How is that even possible? Why would a flight be over that neighborhood? Did the plane suffer a mechanical failure? What the hell . . . ?!!”

About 15 minutes later, as I continued listening to the broadcast, the announcer suddenly shouted that the second tower had also been hit . . . and I knew, with the most gut-wrenching pain, that these were no accidents. This was terrorism.

At that point, I had reached the place where I would exit Route 50 onto the road that would take me over the Key Bridge, across the Potomac River, and down M Street to my office. Or I could instead continue straight and head south, returning home by a different route than I had just come. What to do?

Our country was under attack. Should I go back home? Or should I continue on to work, where I would be with colleagues while we waited to see what was happening? I chose the latter.

Had I made a different decision, I would have had to pass directly by the Pentagon.

Instead, when that third plane hit the Pentagon, I was already safely in my office, across the river . . . but with a direct view of the site of the third strike and the black smoke billowing up from the headquarters of the U.S. Department of Defense.

With my co-workers, I watched the news on TV until, less than a half hour later, a fourth plane crashed into a field in Pennsylvania — taken down by passengers who made the heroic decision to prevent what would have been an even greater tragedy if that flight had continued on to the hijackers’ intended destination in D.C.

Meanwhile, like everyone else, I had been trying to reach members of my family to let them know I was all right. But all of the phone lines — both land lines and cell towers — were overwhelmed. My sister worked in suburban Virginia, but I couldn’t reach her. She used public transportation, and might not be able to get home. My son and daughter both lived some distance away, and I knew they’d be worried about both my sister and me. So I simply took off.

Not surprisingly, I wasn’t the only one. The roads were already gridlocked with people fleeing the city. I crept along, continuing to try my cell phone, but without luck. It took nearly an hour, for what should have been a 15-minute drive, to reach my sister’s office. I parked in front of her building, and for some reason I still cannot explain, I tried to put change into the parking meter . . . as though the police were going to be checking for parking violations that day! When I found that there was a coin stuck in the meter, I finally came to my senses, said “Screw it” (or words to that effect), and ran into my sister’s office building.

I’m sure I don’t have to describe the sense of relief when we saw each other. She had also, by some miracle, received a call from my son, who had been unable to reach me and finally got through to her. At that point, there was nothing left for us to do but go home.

And that’s when we both noticed something odd. Despite the traffic jams, and despite the extreme anxiety gripping everyone, people were treating one another with courtesy and consideration: waving pedestrians across the street, alternating the right-of-way at intersections without traffic lights, not honking their car horns. We were all stunned, experiencing the same feelings of disbelief and fear. And in that moment, we were all Americans, sharing a crisis that we couldn’t yet identify, but knowing that it was probably going to get worse before it got better.

And it did get worse, when the casualty reports were released, and when we saw the gaping hole in the side of the Pentagon and the empty spaces where the majestic Twin Towers had stood. And a few days later, when my grandson, then just three and a half, ran to me shouting, “Nana! Nana! Some bad guys just blowed up a building!”

But it also brought strangers together in ways we had never before experienced: the good people of Canada taking in thousands of travelers whose flights to the U.S. had to be diverted, and sending troops and first responders to help in the recovery; the group of young British soldiers I encountered at Dulles Airport a few days later, arriving to help out; NATO immediately invoking Article 5, unhesitatingly activating the mutual defense pact that had never before been necessary.

And individuals simply being kinder to one another, because we suddenly realized how fragile life can be.

If only it didn’t take a horrific tragedy to bring out the best in us . . .

Perhaps today, a quarter of a century later, as we pause to honor the victims of 9-11, we can also pledge to carry forward a measure of that kindness. The world can certainly use it.

Just sayin’ . . .

Brendochka
9/11/26