Today marks 24 years since the world stood still.
On September 11, 2001, nearly 3,000 lives were lost in a single morning. It was a moment that reshaped history — not just for America, but for individuals, families, and communities around the world. For many of us, that day is not a chapter in a textbook — it’s a memory. A feeling. A silence. A tear.
I was 10 years old. Just two days before, I had been kicked by a horse at my county fair, breaking my leg. I’d moved in with my mom’s parents temporarily — their house had everything I needed on one level, and they were going to help care for me while I healed. It was a Monday morning, and I was home from school since the doctors hadn’t yet cleared me to return. I was in the living room watching cartoons when my aunt called, crying.
I handed the phone to my grandmother.
A few moments later, the channel changed. And suddenly we were watching history unfold in real time — in silence, in shock, in disbelief.
Later that day, my grandparents gently helped me into the car, and we went to church. We sat among neighbors, friends, and strangers — people who, just like us, were there to pray for the country, to process what had happened, and to be together. It was a moment where I witnessed true unity: a community, and then a nation, pulling closer together.
It’s strange to look around now and see how divided things feel. To remember how, in that moment, we chose each other. We chose compassion. We chose to show up.
As someone whose work revolves around capturing the fleeting — a look between a horse and rider, a fog-covered morning in the hills, a quiet breath before the next step — I think often about memory and legacy. About what we hold on to. About what we honor.
So today, I honor:
The lives lost and the families forever changed.
The first responders who never hesitated.
The ordinary people who did extraordinary things.
The power of unity in the face of heartbreak.
Let us remember them not just with silence, but with kindness, compassion, and purpose. May we live in a way that builds the kind of world we all hoped for in the days that followed.
We remember.
We carry forward.
We never forget.
With respect,
Tiffany Bumgardner
Exposure One Studios
