The Small Moments That Change Everything

Twenty-five years ago today, my brother walked out of Tower Two of the World Trade Center to have a cigarette.

He was in New York training for Morgan Stanley. They had taken a break, and at the time, he smoked. He doesn't anymore. But on September 11, 2001, that cigarette put him outside of the building when everything changed.

Twenty-five years later, he is in Columbus helping his son—my nephew Owen—recover from a near-fatal accident after being struck by a truck while riding his e-bike near campus.

There are days when the randomness of life is impossible to ignore.

I was supposed to be in New York with my brother that week. Instead, I had broken my knee and needed surgery, so I stayed home in Ohio.

At the time, I worked for a newspaper. Photography and documenting the news were what I did. Had I been in New York that morning, I know exactly what I would have done. I would have grabbed my camera and gone toward what was happening. I would have photographed it. I would have tried to document the people, the fear, the destruction and everything unfolding around us because that was my job.

When I finally saw my brother after September 11, one of the things he told me was that he was glad I hadn't been there.

I've thought about that many times over the last 25 years.

There are so many tiny decisions and circumstances that make up a life. A cigarette break. A broken knee. Being five minutes early or five minutes late. Turning one direction instead of another.

Change any one of them and I don't know what my family looks like today.

If September 11 had ended differently for my brother, Alan would have grown up an only child. His three younger brothers—including Owen—would never have existed.

And now Owen has had his own encounter with that terrible line between what happened and what could have happened.

His life is going to look very different for a while. The next six months, possibly much longer, will involve recovery, rehabilitation and figuring out what comes next. It isn't the sophomore year of college he expected to have.

But he's here.

His dad survived.

And 25 years later, his son survived too.

I know how incredibly lucky that makes our family.

Every September 11, I still think about the families who weren't as lucky.

I don't know if there will ever be a September 11 when I don't cry. What stays with me more than anything isn't necessarily a particular image. It's the feeling.

Shock.

Fear.

Loss.

I remember sitting in Ohio watching everything unfold live on television and trying to understand what I was seeing. New York. Washington, D.C. Pennsylvania. It seemed impossible, and yet there it was happening in front of us.

Our country changed that day. In many ways, the world changed.

There are people alive today who weren't born yet or were too young to remember it, and I don't know if it's possible to explain what it felt like to watch that day unfold in real time. There was no knowing what was coming next. There was no ending yet. We were simply watching it happen.

I also remember what came afterward.

I have never blamed Muslims for an act of evil committed by a specific group of people. What I do blame is the willingness we sometimes have as human beings to turn fear into hatred toward anyone we perceive as different from ourselves.

Twenty-five years later, I wish I could say we've gotten better at that.

I'm not sure we have.

There is so much anger in 2026. So much division. So much willingness to decide who someone is before knowing anything about them.

But I also see the opposite.

I see it in small acts of kindness. I see it in strangers helping strangers. And recently, I've seen it in the support people have shown our family since Owen's accident.

We started a GoFundMe ( https://gofund.me/5aae593a6) because while Owen has insurance, the reality of surviving something catastrophic in the United States is complicated. Recovery doesn't stop when you leave the hospital. There will be rehabilitation, travel, time away from work, ongoing care and expenses my brothers family probably doesn’t even know about yet.

Insurance, as most Americans eventually discover, is a fickle bitch.

No parent who has just faced the possibility of losing their child should also have to wonder whether insurance will approve the care that child needs. Yet that is part of the reality families face every day.

And still, people help.

Some of them know Owen. Some know our family. Some don't know us at all.

That matters to me.

Because after 25 years, maybe that's the part I want to hold onto.

Not the hatred that followed September 11. Not the divisions we've created since. Not even only the fear I still remember from that morning.

The people.

The person who stops.

The person who helps.

The person who gives what they can.

The person who chooses compassion when it would be easier to look away.

My brother and I don't always get along. We're siblings. Twenty-five additional years together certainly haven't changed that.

But he got those 25 years.

He got to continue being Alan's dad. He got to become a father to four more boys.

Owen got to be born.

I got to watch my family grow.

And this year, after coming frighteningly close to another very different kind of loss, our family gets more time with Owen too.

I don't know what any of our lives would look like if September 11, 2001, had gone differently.

I'm thankful I never had to find out.

Today I remember the people whose families weren't given that same chance. I remember the people who went to work, boarded an airplane or started an ordinary Tuesday morning and never came home.

And I am deeply aware of the people in my own life who are still here.

Twenty-five years later, that feels like something worth being thankful for.