TWENTY-FIVE YEARS AFTER the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on America, that event remains, for me, as close as my memory, writing and photos. As close as the stories retold annually. As close as the local commemoration held each September to mark this American tragedy.
September 11, was, indeed, tragic. In the thousands of lives lost. In the sense of security shattered. In the trauma inflicted on all of us old enough to remember.
Some were not yet born. Some were too young to remember. But for others like my mom, 9/11 marked a second monumental moment in American history. Shortly after the 2001 attacks, she compared September 11 to the 1945 attack on Pearl Harbor 60 years earlier. Mom was only nine then, an impressionable kid with no understanding that Hawaii was an ocean away from Minnesota and not, as she thought, several towns distant from her home. I could still hear the lingering fear in her voice even six decades later.
I often wonder if my young son, just seven at the time of 9/11, understood the distance separating us from death and destruction in New York City, Washington DC and Shanksville, Pennsylvania. He was home sick from school that morning when my husband, Randy, called to tell me about the first plane slamming into the World Trade Center. I turned on my television to witness the second plane hitting the second tower.
I recall thinking how surreal this all seemed. How was this possible? What was happening? My eyes remained riveted to the TV screen.
On the living room floor, my son and his friend, whom I was caring for that day, played. Soon they were stacking wooden blocks, blasting toy metal airplanes into the tall towers. Blocks scattered across the carpet.
I should have been the responsible mom and caregiver and switched off the TV. But I couldn’t. So I tried to explain to the boys the reality of what we were all seeing without scaring them. Was that even possible when I, as an adult, could not fathom the seemingly impossible?
The passage of 25 years dims the sharpness of those early impressions. But I remember feeling deeply unsettled. Scared. Could the Mall of America, a symbol of American capitalism an hour from my southern Minnesota home, be the next target? Anything seemed possible.
In the early evening of that fateful day, I recall looking skyward, searching for planes. There were none. They’d all been grounded.
I remember listening to President George W. Bush address the nation, reassuring all of us. In part, he said, “Terrorist attacks can shake the foundations of our biggest buildings, but they cannot touch the foundation of America. These acts shattered steel, but they cannot dent the steel of American resolve.”
On that day and subsequent days, I felt a strong sense of unity among Americans. We were united in shock, in grief, in determination, in resolve to stand strong as a country. It was remarkable really, the way we stood together in singular purpose of defending democracy.
I wish now, 25 years later, that we could reclaim that sense of unity. Not through another tragedy, but rather through an understanding that we are all human, that life is precious, that we are all interconnected no matter who we are or where we live in the United States of America.
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TELL ME: What are your memories of 9/11? I’d like to hear your stories from that day.
FYI: The Faribault Fire Department will hold its annual 9/11 commemoration at the fire station on September 11. Attendees should arrive around 7:30 a.m. for the 7:46 a.m. ceremony.
© Copyright 2026 Audrey Kletscher Helbling
Minnesota Prairie Roots 
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