Like many others I read this every year- I believe I first discovered the thread sometime in 2012/13. It brings me comfort, but also a good cry- which is needed.
On 9/11 I was 3 months into my career post-college, working in midtown Manhattan. I remember getting the first call from my friend that planes had hit the towers. I remember the phones started to ring non-stop around me as colleagues received similar calls. I remember watching the first tower fall on TV (we didn't have a good view down 6th). I was sitting at my desk, head in hands, and an acquaintance I barely knew, "adopted" me for the day and told me she had a friend's place to go to. I remember being on 6th avenue and seeing the 2nd tower burn- we looked away for 20 seconds, and when we looked back it was gone. I remember hearing jets flying above, and people diving behind rocks in central park. I remember when I went home much later times square was desolately empty, and I remember seeing the smoke from the ferry I had to take back to NJ. I remember when I finally got home, after a boat ride and a 5 mile walk, downing most of a bottle of wine and going to bed with all the lights on- my roommates weren't home and I didn't want to be alone in the dark. I also remember 9/12, when after binging news for 2 hours I had to turn the TV to HBO because that was the ONLY channel not covering the tragedy and I needed a break. Amazingly nobody close to me died, but there were multiple close calls.
Everybody has a story of the day. One that hit me hardest came 5 years later. I was scuba diving in Lake Tahoe on 9/10/06, learning to dry suit dive, with an instructor and another gentleman 15 years older than I. The instructor and I were reflecting on our experiences- turns out the older gentleman had been in airline operations based out of ORD (for either United or American) but had previously been at EWR. He tried to tell his story, but it was still all too fresh and he couldn't say a lot, he just cried. The pain of losing friends and colleagues and just how personal he took the attack. I was young, had less miles under my belt, and until then I never quite appreciated just how deeply the day cut within the airline families.