The two-year-old children of the Twin Towers, who are cousins, chat happily as our group walks through the streets of Manhattan. Today is September 11, 2021, and it is the twentieth anniversary of the day that changed America forever.
"I'm glad the pandemic calmed down* in time for us to go to the memorial," Mohammed al-Hashim mentions. Mohammed, his girlfriend Ryan, the Twin Towers and their families, myself and my family, Empire Smithsonian and his wife Liberty, Samuel York, Justice Hudson, my sister Nicole, my twin brother Trevor and his family, and Uzma Bukhari-Bailey and her sister and family are all headed towards the National September 11 Memorial to pay our respects.
"True," I comment. "Twenty years is an important milestone. I can't believe it's been twenty whole years since that awful day in 2001!"
"I remember how the Twin Towers, who were just two eleven-year-old girls, helped me find my sister at the burning Pentagon," Julia recalls.
North Tower smiles. "And then we helped you both find your little brother back in New York City."
"We were such a team back then," South Tower adds. "Practically joined at the hip. We still are, actually!"
"Twins," Nicole announces. "They have always fascinated me."
When she says this, she winks at my brother and I. Trevor and I look at each other and then laugh at the same time.
"Woah! We're at the memorial, guys!"
The sudden explanation by Finley Xiaofang Davis, the ten-year-old daughter of my brother and his wife Caihong, makes us all look up.
We all see that we are standing less than five feet away from the North Pool of the September 11 Memorial.
"It's so pretty," adds Lin, Finley's six-year-old sister. "Look at the water!"
The girls run up to the reflective pools and gaze down into the water, tracing the fingers over the engravings of names in the metal.
Rhys Staten, the two-year-old son of North Tower Staten and her husband American 11, also known as Louis, points at the pool. "Mom, this you?"
"Let me see," North Tower responds, checking her phone. "Yes, Rhys, this is my pool, the North Pool. Your aunt's pool is over there."
"See water?" Rhys asks, and his mother picks him up.
"Here's the water," she points at the waterfall, and Rhys gazes, mesmerized.
"I can't believe it's been twenty years," South Tower adds as she lifts her daughter Iowa into her arms.
"It seems like yesterday that you both rescued my sister and I from the burning Pentagon," I recall. "You two were just eleven years old!"
"I'm sorry you had to go through that as children," my husband adds. "I can't imagine how horrifying that must have been."
"It was terrible, Mr. Alievi, but through it all, my sister and I held our heads up high and let the world know that evil will not bring us down," South Tower responds. "And I know that things will get better in the future."
We all realize that she is right as time goes on. The family of Tyson Bailey, Uzma's husband, finally accepts her as part of their family a few months after their wedding in August of 2021. They agree not to make terrible generalizations about her religion and nationality based on the actions of a couple of people, and they absolutely refuse to call her rude nicknames.
About a year after our memorial visit, Uzma and Tyson welcome a baby boy, who they name Hudson Malik Bukhari-Bailey. The Twin Towers look at the happy mother and remembered how well she healed after she was attacked in 2003 at just ten years old. They then look at the proud father, who is cradling his son with pure love in his eyes. He hands the baby to his parents, and Hudson's grandparents laugh with joy.
Five months after that, Mohammed al-Hashim takes his girlfriend, Ryan Jensen, up to the top of One World Trade Center in New York City as a celebration of their fourth anniversary and proposes to her. She says yes right away, and I smile proudly when I notice that I've captured everything in a video on my phone.
They get married in Florida in November of 2023. A few months later, Ryan announces that she's pregnant with twin babies. Six months after that announcement, she gives birth to Emma and Evan al-Hashim with all of her friends and family celebrating around her.
This obviously gave both of the Twin Towers baby fever, because just three months after the birth of the al-Hashim twins, the Staten twins decide to adopt again. Somehow, they both get sets of identical twins: North Tower's son Rhys gets sisters named Eliza and Eleanor, and South Tower's daughter Iowa gets brothers named Boston and Braden. The babies are healthy and happy, and they love their parents at first sight. All six kids return from the hospital delighted, their parents feeling even more so than them.
The days and years go by, and Tuesday, September 11, 2001, slowly becomes a thing of the past. Kids born after the day get married, have babies of their own. The day's effects, however, never fade. The new One World Trade Center building stands tall and proud in Manhattan, close to the spot where the original One World Trade Center stood along with her sister. The nearby museum still holds distant memories, debris, and remnants from that day's attacks. The memorial pools display the names of over two thousand victims. The Arlington National Cemetery, filled with victims of the attack in Virginia, is still near the Pentagon.
Still, those of us who remember march on with confidence. We never forget the things we lost, the things we had to sacrifice to keep what happened from happening again. Unfortunately, it occurred several times in 2020–the perpetrator was a little thing, much more silent than a plane. Thankfully, we've recovered from that now, and we hope that we no longer have to suffer through something causing massive death and destruction, small or big.
We love our families. We try to love our country, even when it messes up bad and makes us kind of embarrassed. We love our cities, our homes. We love everything about life, no matter what it throws at us.
And most of all, we never forget what happened on Tuesday, September 11, 2001.
*Let's all pretend this actually happened
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Triumph {The Manhattan Trilogy #3}
General FictionNorth Tower. It is shocking to her that it's the year 2011. It's already been ten years since her death! Yes, sometimes she has nightmares about it. She's mostly moved on, though. She has a wonderful boyfriend that she is sure she wants to marry som...
