As I was watching 9/11 memorials on television, I kept thinking how hard it is to believe that a quarter-century has passed since that fateful September day in New York City. 9/11 was the Pearl Harbor for my generation, Gen X, and millennials. Like all Americans who were old enough to comprehend the devastatingly evil nature of the attacks on the World Trade Center buildings, I will never forget where I was and what I was doing when the news broke that we had been struck by terrorists. I had a job at one of the JPMorgan Chase bank headquarters in Columbus, Ohio, and was trying out a corporate environment after stepping away from teaching for a while. Sept. 11 began like any other normal Tuesday morning. I worked in a foreclosure department, where my job was to read and correct letters sent to Chase customers in danger of losing their homes. The mood in this section, which also included phone representatives taking calls from people desperately trying to work out payment plans after falling behind on their mortgages, was always a bit drab. After our supervisors were notified that two hijacked planes had hit the WTC towers, we were immediately sent home. Our building was roughly six miles from John Glenn Columbus International Airport, and Chase administrators feared other aircraft leaving major cities were being targeted. One of my friends who worked at Chase, from New York, had a massive panic attack when he found out what had happened in Lower Manhattan.

The images that have remained vivid in my mind from 9/11 include the video footage of White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card telling President George W. Bush about the second plane hitting the South Tower while Bush was reading to Sandra Daniels' second-grade class at Emma E. Booker Elementary School in Sarasota, Florida. Bush maintained incredible composure as he finished reading to the students and later spoke to the nation. The other images that are lodged in my memory include the agonizing photos of people jumping and falling to their deaths from the towers due to the excruciating heat, smoke and fire. "The Falling Man," a vertical shot taken by Associated Press photographer Richard Drew, is horrifying because, as Drew shared in a recent WBUR radio interview, he captured this man plunging to his death "at a fraction of a second." It is estimated that more than 200 people jumped or fell from the towers, but an actual number has never been confirmed.

When the complete list of 9/11 victims was released, my mother came across the story of Edna L. Stephens, who was a 53-year-old budget analyst at a Pentagon office. Edna was one of the 184 people who died when American Airlines Flight 77 crashed into the west side of the building, which was immediately engulfed in jet-fuel flames. What caught my mother's attention was that Edna was born in Gainesville, Georgia, and her last name, Stephens, is spelled the same as my great-grandfather's. My great-grandfather had a brother who lived near Gainesville and had several children, but we didn't know any family members from that area. "I do believe she was our relative," my mother said, but I never took the time to research it. As I read tributes from some of the 9/11 victims' families last week, I pulled up Edna's obituary. During her childhood, she and her siblings were members of Antioch Baptist Church, and they had an upbringing very similar to my mother's in terms of community life. In a local WSB-TV interview, her family shared that she planned to retire in 2002 and eventually open her own restaurant. Her death is still very painful after all the years that have passed.

Edna's family prayed at Antioch this year to honor her. I believe their deep faith rooted in Christ has helped them get through such a devastating loss. And in my overall reflection on 9/11, I think of Bush addressing the country, referencing the 23rd Psalm, stating that he prayed the families would be "comforted by a Power greater than any of us, spoken through the ages." The fourth verse of this psalm talks about "walking through the valley of the shadow of death" and fearing no evil because of God's power. This is my prayer for the 9/11 families as they continue to grieve: that they will come to rest in the Lord's care with the peace of knowing that even in the midst of unspeakable tragedy, evil did not and will not destroy us.

Dr. Jessica A. Johnson is a lecturer in the English department at Ohio State University's Lima campus. Email her at smojc.jj@gmail.com. Follow her on X: @JjSmojc. To find out more about Jessica Johnson and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

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