09/12/2026
I had originally intended to share our travel tryout dates tonight, but in light of today's "Day of Remembrance," I don't feel it's appropriate to do anything but honor the victims and the heroes of 9/11.
I fight tears all day long every 9/11. It's a great privilege to share my experience with my students each year as they were only a twinkle in their parents' eyes when 9/11 happened. Heck, I have colleagues who weren't alive or don't remember the events of that day.
For those of us who experienced the events of that day as it happened, please know that I share in you pain remembering the events of the day. I feel it deeply every year. It's a weight we all carry.
That fateful September Tuesday you simply could not catch your breath. As you attempted to wrap your head around one tragedy, another one was unfolding before your eyes, even more horrific and unfathomable than the previous catastrophe.
I encourage you to share your story with your children. All of it. The airliners. The Man in the Red Bandana. The fighter jets in the sky. The jumpers. God, have mercy, the jumpers. The Pentagon victims who are often forgotten. Todd Beamer and the passengers of Flight 93 who answered Beamers call of, "Let's Roll!" who saved the lives of those in Washington DC and the squad leader of a group of fighter jets dispatched from Dover Air Force Base that flew directly over my house in West Chester, tasked with bringing down that plane despite having no am******on to do it with. That squad leader knew she was sent on a kamikaze mission, and it was her duty. She accepted it. How incredible is that? Every police officer, firefighter, and rescue worker who ran into the place that everyone was running from. How? How did they have the courage to even do it?
The sacrifices made that day are simply staggering. It's overwhelming. I weep every 9/11 as I consider it. And I'm so thankful for their incredible example of sacrificial love and service.
I pray for the unity of 9/12. I pray that we will live our lives in light of the sacrifices made on a day when evil thought it got the last laugh, but courage, sacrifice, service, and love said, "not so fast."
There's a lot of evil in the world, and your brain is hard wired to find it. May you train your brain to see the blessings, see the good, see the beauty despite the evil. Every day, not just the hard ones.
To me, that is legacy of 9/11. All the good in the world conquering the evil that attempted to frighten, devide, and conquer us.
The darkness will never win unless we allow it. Shine your light, LFE Family, and conquer the darkness daily.
Everything else can wait until tomorrow.
-Ry
