September 11, 2001: What a Troubled 15-Year-Old Boy Learned About Unity

Twenty-five years after September 11, 2001, I look back not only on the tragedy of that day, but on the lesson it left with me. As a 15-year-old in New York growing up amid poverty, addiction, instability, and conflict, I understood division long before I understood unity. In the days after 9/11, I watched New Yorkers and Americans come together in a way I had never seen before. That experience helped shape the life I live today.