Author: Joy McIntyre

Reading these words six years later, I want to reach back through time and hug the woman who wrote them. She didn’t know where she was going yet. She only knew she had to keep moving.

And she did.

I kept walking.

Please enjoy these words, first published six years ago, today……..

We were so busy living that it was easy enough to ignore all the warning signs. There were so many. Few of us really believe that death could be at our door. So many times, we have all ignored symptoms, believing they held no significance. We did just that. Boy, were we wrong. After a nine-week battle, I was left the lone survivor on a spring Wednesday between Palm Sunday and Maundy Thursday.

Cholangiocarcinoma, a rare type of cancer that forms in the bile ducts, ravaged my husband, VST. It was aggressive, lethal, and quick, stealing his energy, strength, resolve, and finally, his brain. In the age of COVID, in my town anyway, medical treatments were being authorized by a panel of doctors at the hospital. Each test needed approval, wasting valuable days as VST grew sicker and sicker. Being the lone caretaker and hospice attendant, I found myself nursing my husband while trying to wrap my head around the fact that we wouldn’t share another Easter.

The idea of hospice service is romantic and wonderful. The company we used employed a group of earth angels, with a few limitations. It was a wonderful place to get all kinds of helpful drugs. Morphine, Lorazepam, Haldol, and others. Marvelous place to get supplies like diapers, wipes, syringes, gloves, and swabs for dry, cracked lips. Because we lived in a remote area, physical help wasn’t available. In reality, we didn’t want strangers interrupting our last and most intimate hours together. So, we went through it alone. VST didn’t make it until Easter, but left me shortly before. Bereft, Deprived. Cut off. Dispossessed. Forlorn. Wanting. Stripped. I began my grieving process.

VST died on a Wednesday morning at 10:30. His death certificate states he died at 11:15. It lies. I was there, alone. I was the one who watched him take his last breath and slowly slip away, while our beloved kids were out on some errands. I assure you, it was 10:30. The sounds my body made that morning were shocking to me. Rather like those that a woman might make during the last stages of labor. Primal and shriek-ish. Raw and from a place I didn’t know existed in me. I was so glad the kids were out of the house. Even in the middle of hospice, few are ready for the moment of death. At least, I wasn’t.

In our small county, sans coroner, the Sheriff needed to pronounce VST’s time of death. Moments after his death, I phoned their office to ask if the real Sheriff would come, instead of a deputy. VST had made friends with him during our six-year stay, and it would be a huge comfort to me. He was in a meeting, but a deputy would come. But in eight minutes, the Sheriff arrived with hugs and a listening ear. He visited VST one last time and comforted me in my very first hour of grief, for which I was so grateful.

A long list of players filled out my first day as a widow. A hospice nurse to neutralize the drugs. The Sheriff. The Deputy Sheriff. The Mortuary Assistants. The kids. The medical equipment personnel. Until finally, evening arrived. The house was quiet. The kids and I were in shock. Our bedroom, where VST had requested his hospital bed be placed only seven days before, was returned to normal without any signs of the nightmare the last week had held. Without a trace of him, of us. Just a pretty room with all the furniture put back in perfect order.

In the cold void of death, the kids left the next morning, needing to return to their lives six hours away. I was alone on the first real day of widowhood. Alone at 6,200 feet, on Mt. Davidson, suspended above Virginia City, looking out into the nothingness of my 100-mile view. The vista, once magical and romantic, was now daunting for a wife who’d been so intertwined with the other half that she no longer knew where he stopped and she began.

Needing an immediate life raft, I turned to the one thing that had been with me my entire life. Words. I chose three to symbolize the first month.

Food. Shelter. Clothing.

Those words would help me stay focused through Month One. For if I focused on Food. Shelter. Clothing. I wouldn’t die in the cold, starving because I had forgotten to eat and gone out to get the mail naked. I took myself in my own arms and gave prayers for the woman I lost that day. I rocked the remaining shell and held her most gently, listening to the wails and sobs late into that first night of widowhood.

These words hold my story. Everyone reading here has lived a story just as grueling, exasperating, and horrifying. As widows, we enter a wilderness that no one has really explained or mapped for us. Each person sees the landscape differently and must find a way through that is hers and hers alone. I found that at first, I kept a daily planner to jot down the simplest things I did. I made sure to list three tasks a day and complete them. My journal helps me remember how strong I was in those early days. You are just as strong.

It’s a comfort to know I didn’t starve in the nighttime cold of Virginia City, while walking hungry and naked to get the mail. It’s only by the grace of God that I didn’t, I assure you.

Author’s Note:

Those first uncertain steps eventually became a journey I could see only in retrospect. They became the story I tell in Widow: A Journey Toward Life.

The book begins in those raw days after VST died and follows my first year of widowhood, one month and one step at a time. I didn’t know then that I was writing my way toward a new life.

I only knew to keep walking.

Widow: A Journey Toward Life will be released November 11.

If you are new here, welcome. And if you have been here for years, perhaps today is a good day to wander around a little and discover something you missed.

The Grieving Gardener began on September 24, 2020, just a few months after my husband, VST, died. At the time, I wasn’t trying to build a website. I certainly wasn’t thinking about what it might become six years later. I was trying to survive.

Writing had always been part of my life, and when grief took almost everything familiar away from me, words remained. I could sit down at the computer and put what I was feeling somewhere outside of myself. Writing was life. And this blog helped save mine.

I have always been a gardener. Gardeners understand something about seasons. We plant. We nurture. We prune. We wait. We lose things we desperately wanted to save. And then, sometimes when we least expect it, something new grows.

That was grief for me. I couldn’t bring back the life I had lost. I couldn’t make the garden look exactly as it had before. But slowly, almost imperceptibly, new life began pushing its way through the soil. Eventually, the words underneath the title of this blog became “Where new life grows from grief.” That is exactly what happened here.

So, let me show you around.

At the top of the website, you’ll find the years. 2020. 2021. 2022. 2023. 2024. 2025. 2026. Click on a year, and the posts from that year will appear in chronological order. If you really want to understand this journey, start with 2020.

But I should warn you. It is raw.

Those earliest posts were written by a woman who was still trying to understand what had happened to her. She didn’t know where the story was going because she didn’t know where she was going. There weren’t beautiful pictures accompanying every post. There wasn’t music. There weren’t videos. There were words. Lots and lots of words.

As time passed, pictures began appearing. Later came music and videos. The blog became prettier, brighter, and more colorful. So did my life. Without realizing it, the website itself became a record of my healing.

You’ll also find an About the Author section. That’s where you can learn a little more about the woman behind all these words—the teacher, gardener, widow, wife, traveler, and now author who has been showing up here five mornings a week for years.

But if you really want to know me, read the blog. I’m in here.

The frightened woman. The grieving woman. The woman who got angry. The woman who laughed again, surprised by the sound. The woman who dated again. The woman who fell in love. The woman who married again. The woman who discovered that loving a new life didn’t mean she had stopped loving the old one.

It’s all here.

You don’t have to begin at the beginning. Choose a year. Choose a title that catches your attention. Read one post or twenty. Follow a particular season of my life, or jump around and see how things changed.

And if you find some of those early posts a little plain, remember what you’re looking at.

You’re watching a woman come back to life.

Tomorrow, the Grieving Gardener turns six years old.

Six years. I can hardly believe it.

And on Friday, I’m going to take you all the way back to the beginning. While I’m off wandering through South Dakota, we’re going to spend some time with the woman who started all of this in 2020.

I think it’s time you met her.

Welcome to the Grieving Gardener. Stay awhile.

There’s a lot growing here.

The suitcases have been packed for days.

This is a different kind of trip for us. If we want coffee in the morning, we’d better get up and fix it ourselves. There will be food in the refrigerator for some meals, and for the others, we’ll go foraging.

Okay, probably not actual foraging. But after cruises and hotels and people bringing us coffee, this will definitely be a change of pace.

We’re off to the wild plains of South Dakota.

For the first couple of days, we’ll do some sightseeing. There are places to see, roads to travel, pictures to take, and undoubtedly a few adventures I haven’t planned yet.

And then it will be time for the big event.

The Buffalo Roundup.

Yee-Haw!

I can hardly wait.

But don’t worry. Just because I’m wandering around South Dakota doesn’t mean the Grieving Gardener is going dark.

In fact, I have something special planned while I’m away.

This week marks six years since I began writing the Grieving Gardener. Six years. It hardly seems possible.

So while I’m out making some new memories, I’m going to take you back to some old ones.

Beginning Friday and continuing next week, I’ll be sharing some of the earliest posts from 2020. Some of you have been with me almost from the beginning. Many of you came along much later and have probably never seen these pieces.

They are different.

In those days, there weren’t beautiful pictures with every post. There weren’t Pinterest pins, music, or videos. There was simply a newly widowed woman sitting down with her words, trying to figure out what had happened to her—and how in the world she was going to live through it.

I don’t want to rewrite that woman.

I want you to meet her.

So, while 2026 Joy is off looking for buffalo, I’ll leave you for a few days with 2020 Joy.

She has quite a story to tell.

And don’t worry. I’ll keep sharing little bits of our South Dakota adventure while we’re gone.

Enjoy.

Bye for now.

Writing is life.

I learned that without realizing I was learning it. Six years ago, I began putting words around grief because I needed somewhere for those words to go. With every story I told, something happened. The grief didn’t disappear, but some of its tethers began to loosen.

There is something powerful about telling our stories. A memory carried silently belongs to one person. Tell it to another, and somehow it lives twice as long.

I learned that from my friend Connie.

When Connie was 93, she told me about her wedding to Buck, the only man in her life. She told me about her wedding dress, made in San Francisco and flown to Chicago for a custom fitting. She told me about her father sending her across the country and how grateful he was that Buck was in San Francisco to catch her and marry her. In my opinion, it was Buck who got the catch of his life.

And while she talked, something extraordinary happened.

Connie became a bride again.

I could see it in her face. There was a sparkle in her eyes. Buck wasn’t simply the husband she had lost. For those moments, he was the young man waiting for her. She was the girl in the wedding dress. Their story was alive again.

I miss her terribly.

But I have her story.

And now, so do you.

That has made me wonder how many stories are sitting quietly in the hearts of the women who read Grieving Gardener. Each widow who has read the presale copy of Widow has come back with at least one story of her own to share with me. It’s a beautiful thing.

So I’m asking.

Widows, tell me your story.

It doesn’t have to be beautifully written. It doesn’t have to be long. You don’t need to be a writer. Tell me about him. Tell me about you. Tell me about the beginning, the middle, or the end. Tell me about the day you met. Your wedding. The fight you still laugh about. The thing you miss. The thing that surprised you after he was gone. Tell me about the first thing you did alone. Tell me where you found hope. Tell me where you are now.

Write it because writing gives memories somewhere to live.

Write it because sometimes putting grief into words loosens its tethers.

Write it because another widow may someday read your story and recognize herself.

And then, if you are willing, send it to me at grievinggardenerjoy@gmail.com.

After I read the stories, perhaps they will simply be stories shared between two widows. With written permission, perhaps some will find their way onto these pages. And perhaps something larger is waiting for us that I cannot see yet.

If you send me a story, I will send you a brand new custom bookmark for your trouble.

For now, I’m going to do something I’ve learned to do very well.

I’m going to listen.

Because my widows have stories to tell.

And it is time they had a voice.

I can’t wait to hear from you.

HHH and I are going on safari. Not Africa. Not Kenya. Not even someplace requiring a passport. We’re flying to South Dakota.

Next week, thousands of people will converge on Custer State Park to watch one of the great spectacles of the American West—the annual Buffalo Roundup. And we’re going to be there.

This has been on my bucket list ever since I first heard about it. There is something almost unimaginable about hundreds of buffalo thundering across the prairie while cowboys and cowgirls on horseback bring them together. Dust flying. Hooves pounding. Riders calling. The Black Hills rising in the distance. I’ve seen pictures. I’ve watched videos. But there are some things you simply need to experience for yourself. This is one of mine.

It’s been sitting on the bucket list, waiting patiently for its turn. Next week, I get to check it off.

South Dakota is a long way from Winterpast, and we have a lot we want to see once we get there. Rather than spend days driving there and days driving back, we’re hopping on a plane. We’re maximizing adventure time.

Of course, HHH and I aren’t going all the way to South Dakota for only one adventure. There will be time for Mount Rushmore, Crazy Horse, Deadwood, and the Badlands. We’ll explore the Black Hills, wander into places that look interesting, and undoubtedly find a few things we didn’t know we needed to see until we got there. Those are often the best parts of a trip anyway.

But just seeing the buffalo isn’t the only reason we’re going. I want to hear them. That’s the part a photograph can’t give me. I want to hear thousands of hooves hitting the earth. I want to see the dust rise from the prairie. I want to watch the riders work together to move an enormous herd across open country. I want to stand there and think, I’m really seeing this.

There are things we put on our bucket lists and carry around for years. Someday I’ll go there. Someday I’ll see that. Someday I’ll do it. But one of the things I’ve learned over the last several years is that someday isn’t promised to any of us.

So we’re going. We’re getting on the airplane. We’re flying to South Dakota. We’re going to see Mount Rushmore and Crazy Horse. We’re going to poke around Deadwood and Wall. We’re going to fill our days with as much South Dakota as we possibly can.

And somewhere in the middle of all of it, I’ll stand on the prairie with HHH beside me and watch one of my bucket-list dreams come thundering toward us.

HHH and I are going on safari. South Dakota, here we come.

And buffalo? You might want to start running.

Have a great weekend. If you get bored, start your own bucket list. You can always start by learning about your dream destinations on YouTube. There is an entire world waiting outside your door. Go see it. Have a great weekend!

Years ago, we met a miracle worker. Just a man, really, but over the years he became something of a hero to us. He is our tree doctor.

The first time I met him, HHH couldn’t be home. I showed him the Russian olive in the back, one of the biggest trees at Winterpast. She was sick. Very sick. Many of her limbs had begun dying back, and despite everything we’d tried, she wasn’t getting better. The tree doctor walked around her, looked up, looked down, examined branches, and thought for a while. “Hmm. I don’t usually recommend this, but this one is beyond repair. I think we need to take her out.”

Well, when the tree doctor says a tree has got to go, I suppose it’s got to go. I’d already spent $900 the year before on medicine trying to save her. We’d given it our best.

Then HHH came home.

I told him what the tree doctor had said. You would have thought I’d announced plans to bulldoze Winterpast. “That will NOT happen on my watch. No.” I think he was about three minutes away from chaining himself to the tree.

So, the tree doctor came back. We would give her one more try. And so we did.

She’s not back to her former glory, but she’s coming back. Slowly. Quietly. As trees do. Just late yesterday, twelve doves enjoyed resting awhile in her branches. Well done.

Our tree guy has become part of the rhythm of Winterpast. He shaped our beloved apricot tree and tended the others. We have thirty-five of them, so there is always somebody needing something. He also unburdened me of the horrible Chinese apple, a tree that was hated on many levels. I don’t miss it. Not even a little bit.

This year, though, his visit will be different. He isn’t simply the tree guy anymore. He’s a friend.

He’ll come while the trees are still green so he can see what happened after last year’s pruning. He’ll examine the new growth, look for trouble, and see what responded well. Then we’ll make plans for the dead of winter, when the trees are quiet and it’s time to prune again.

But this year, our tree doctor returns a grieving man. He has lost his beloved wife.

There is nothing I can do to prune away that kind of pain. There is no medicine I can pour around the roots. No diseased branch I can remove that will make the rest of him suddenly flourish. I know that. HHH knows that.

So perhaps this year Winterpast can give something back to the man who has cared for her trees. He can walk among the gardens. Stand beneath the apricot. Check on the stubborn Russian olive that wasn’t supposed to survive. Maybe he’ll sit for a while and simply be.

There is something about a garden that understands grief. Things die there. Things struggle. Limbs have to be removed. There are empty spaces where something beloved once grew. And then, sometimes when we’ve nearly given up, a tiny bit of green appears.

Winterpast is an amazing comfort to those that have lost. She knows how.

Boy, do we know that.

Hey Everybody, it’s me. Oliver.

As the lone dog here at Winterpast, I need to say a few things.

Life has been ruff around here lately. There aren’t too many lizards to chase. No toads in sight. And my bestest girlfriend left.

I’m not sure where she went.

She was really sick before she left. So sick that sometimes she growled and snapped at me. I didn’t mean to bother her. Sometimes I’m a butt. I know that.

Mom and Dad took her somewhere one day, and when they came home, she wasn’t with them. They were crying.

I keep waiting for them to go get her.

Where is she?

Do you know something I don’t?

As for me, I’ve been trying to watch everything around here. It’s a big job when you’re the only dog. I have to keep an eye on Mom. I have to keep an eye on Dad. I have to keep an eye on the yard. Somebody has to be in charge.

Mom and Dad did buy a trailer. I remember trailers. I can be real good in a trailer. At least I’m pretty sure I can. But we haven’t gone anywhere yet, so I’m still waiting to see what that’s all about.

These days, I love all the extra rubs and kisses. And I really love sleeping in the bedroom again. The laundry room was okay when there were two of us, but it would be way too lonely without her.

I’m eight now. Maybe that means I’m getting older. I don’t know. I know I like lying in the sunshine. I like being close to Mom and Dad. I like a good rub. I like knowing where everybody is.

And I’ve found two dead birds. I try to remember. Don’t eat the birds, Oliver. Don’t eat the birds. But, I forget. I really like them.

I’ll try to remember not to bring them into the house, Mom.

No promises.

Gotta go. I need to find my bone.

With love,
Oliver

HHH and I didn’t meet in a conventional way for two sexagenarians. Both traveling through our own grief journeys, we began again on August 28, 2022, over a home-cooked meal of wild game. Adorably shy and new, neither of us had any idea that our lives had changed forever that night.

Then followed twelve months of regular dates—and a few that sparkled. There was the lighted parade on December 3rd, when everything around us seemed to twinkle just a little brighter. Or the 4th of July, when he explained just how many times he had won the greased pig contest in his life.

I also learned early that HHH had days when he simply couldn’t be bothered. Sunday. Monday. Thursday. And possibly a few others. If there were sports on, those nights belonged to him.

That was just fine with me because I had my nights, too. Musicals. Rom-coms. Plain old housework. At 4:30 in the morning, I needed to write. He needed to go to work.

Slowly, without either of us really noticing it happen, our routines smoothed themselves into something wonderful. A relationship.

Four seasons were shared. Three hundred sixty-five sunrises and sunsets. Breakfasts, lunches and dinners. Two dogs. A litter of puppies. Trips to the coast. A new car.

There weren’t fireworks every day. There didn’t need to be. There was day-to-day life. And somewhere in all those ordinary days, ordinary life turned into a love affair of the sweetest kind.

On the evening marking our first year together, HHH proposed. I said yes. There was no other possible answer to his improbable question.

Yes. Of course. Yes.

On a beautiful autumn day in October, we exchanged vows and became one.

Since then, almost four years have passed. There have been adventures and quiet mornings. Projects and plans. Laughter and tears. We’ve lost those we loved and welcomed new things we never expected.

Through it all, we have continued doing what we discovered how to do during that very first year: we share our lives without having to give up who we are.

He can have his sports. I’ll keep my musicals. He can sleep. I’ll be at my computer at 5:00 in the morning. And when we’re finished doing our separate things, there we are again. Together.

HHH, these four years have been better than jewels. Four years of mornings and evenings. Four years of adventures and ordinary Tuesdays. Four years of discovering that life can still surprise us. Four years of life.

Yes to adventure. Yes to life. Yes to you.

We are so blessed, you and I.

Six years ago, I was finding my way toward a blog. It’s hard to believe it’s been that long. Week after week, thousands of people visit GrievingGardener.com for many different reasons. Some are grieving. Some come for gardening tips. Some like the adventures. Some probably just stop by to see what HHH and I have gotten ourselves into now. Somehow, over the last six years, this little blog written from my desk at Winterpast has found its way around the world.

Which brings me to Guernsey.

To the person who has been reading from Guernsey, would you please email me? I would love to know about you and your country. I have no inside on your identity. All I know is that one person reads from Guernsey. I must admit, I had to look up the location of Guernsey. Now I am enchanted. Perhaps I could hold a book signing there. Do you have a bookstore? I think a trip may be required for research purposes.

At any rate, please email me. I will send you a beautiful, custom bookmark to use with Widow: A Journey Toward Life, to be released on November 11, 2026. (grievinggardenerjoy@gmail.com)

Six years ago, I never dreamed that with time I would be sitting at my desk on a Wednesday afternoon celebrating the completion of not one book, but three versions of that book.

Hardcover.

Paperback.

E-book.

Complete.

The last proofs are on their way, and Widow: A Journey Toward Life is waiting patiently for November 11, 2026, when all three editions will be ready to fly off Amazon’s bookshelves.

There were certainly days when I wondered if we would ever get here. Covers changed. Pages moved. Things that looked perfect suddenly weren’t. One correction led to another, and another, and probably another after that.

After months of patience, I would say to HHH, “Honey, the book is done.” He doesn’t take that bait anymore. I might have been done with the paperback, but the hardcover needed a small adjustment, which then required a new cover, and I promptly lost it in cyberspace for a bit. Trust me when I tell you, the writing was the easy part.

But we got here. The e-copy of the book is up for pre-sale on Amazon. Just search Joy McIntyre on Amazon to get a first glimpse of the cover. It will be released on 11/11/2026, but I might have mentioned that a few times already.

So now, I’m going to do something rather wonderful.

I’m going to vacation. The work is finished. The last proofs are coming. The book has its very own release date. For a little while, there is nothing left to do but enjoy the anticipation and perhaps dream about what comes next.

Milestones are funny things. Sometimes we’re so busy trying to reach the next one that we walk right past the one we just accomplished. Not this one.

I’m stopping to look around.

I’m remembering the woman who sat down six years ago and began writing because she needed somewhere to put all those words. She couldn’t possibly have known where they would take her. A blog became a community. Readers came from around the world. And now, there is a book with three ways to read it.

On November 11th, I plan to raise the roof. It won’t be long now. Less than two months.

I can’t wait.

Twenty-five years have passed.

How can that possibly be?

September 11, 2001, feels like a lifetime ago. And yet, when I allow myself to go back there, I can remember that morning as though it happened yesterday.

I was teaching third grade.

In those days, I had a habit of getting to school ridiculously early. It was my favorite time of the day. The halls were quiet. My classroom was peaceful. And, most importantly, all the other teachers were still sleeping and the copier was mine. Teachers will understand.

I had a thirty-minute drive to work, and my morning routine included stopping at Klein’s Truck Stop for my first Diet Coke of the day.

Mohammed was working behind the counter. He was a super guy.

That morning, he was watching the television.

He mentioned that something had happened in New York. There had apparently been an accident. Something about a small plane crashing into a building. Thank goodness there was an entire country between New York City and me.

I thanked him, picked up my Diet Coke, and continued on to school.

By the time I reached my classroom and turned on the television, the world had changed.

Once and for all.

Suddenly, New York didn’t feel quite so far away.

Both of my boys were in the United States Air Force.

That very morning, one of my sons and his new wife left their base in New Jersey for a new assignment in California. My other son was stationed in England, serving as a linguist.

Two sons were serving our country while our country was now under attack.

And I was their mother.

But in a little while, twenty third graders would walk through my classroom door.

And I was their teacher.

By the time twenty littles pulled out their chairs that morning, they already understood something was different.

Children always know.

They had seen teachers crying.

They had seen worried, strained faces on adults who normally greeted them with smiles.

Some of their classmates’ chairs were empty because those children had stayed home with Mom.

Our principal’s eyes were red.

The janitor was talking with his family in Mexico.

Everywhere these children looked, the grown-ups were behaving differently.

Something had happened.

Something terrible.

And they needed us to help them understand it.

Should little children know about these things?

Absolutely.

Not every horrible detail. Not images that will haunt them.

But the truth?

Yes.

Children know when adults are frightened. Pretending nothing has happened doesn’t make them feel safer.

So we talked.

And throughout that day, we wrote and drew our hearts out.

We wrote letters to nurses, doctors, firefighters, New York City Police officers. Heroes we didn’t even know. People we would never meet.

Those who could write, wrote. Those who couldn’t find the words, drew pictures.

After finding it on our classroom map, we talked about New York.

Should my third graders have had a geography lesson during math about the distance between Madera, California, and New York City?

That day, they had to. They needed to understand where this was happening. They needed to understand that something could happen thousands of miles away and still matter to us.

And when somebody needed a hug, we hugged.

That day, something happened in Room 20.

Twenty little children and one scared teacher became a classroom of love.

And somehow, we remained knitted together that way for the rest of the school year.

Twenty-five years later, those third graders are adults now, with lives of their own. Some may have children in elementary school like they were on September 11, 2001.

I wonder what they remember. Do they remember Room 20? Do they remember the letters and drawings? Do they remember the adults crying? Do they remember looking at a map and discovering just how far away New York City was? Do they remember their young, frightened teacher trying to comfort them?

I hope they remember something else. I hope they remember that they comforted me, too.

Those children taught me something that day. When the world becomes frightening, we don’t have to understand everything before we can do something good. We can write a letter. Draw a picture. Hold someone’s hand. Say a prayer. Offer a hug.

We can be kind.

There is one number I still see regularly here in Nevada.

343.

On the backs of firetrucks in my little town are the words:

Stay Back 343 Feet.

It is a tribute to the 343 members of the New York City Fire Department who died on September 11.

Twenty-five years later, that number still travels down the streets of my little Nevada town.

I love that.

Because 343 isn’t simply a number. They were firefighters. They were people. They were sons and daughters, husbands and fathers, brothers and friends.

While thousands of others also lost their lives that day, those three numbers have become one small way of saying:

We remember.

Twenty-five years have passed.

There are now adults who weren’t alive when the towers fell. There are children for whom September 11 is something in a history lesson rather than a memory.

That’s why those of us who remember need to keep remembering. Remember every one of the fallen. Regular people who simply went to work that beautiful September morning and never came home.

And remember the extraordinary bravery, heroism, and kindness that appeared in the middle of something so terrible.

Today, do something kind.

Something real.

Watch some of the footage from that day.

Learn about someone who was there.

Listen to the stories.

Sing along with Come From Away and remember the people of Gander who opened their homes and their hearts to strangers.

Tell a child what happened. And then tell that child about the helpers.

Twenty-five years ago, twenty little third graders in Room 20 taught their teacher how people respond when the world suddenly becomes frightening.

They loved.

They helped.

They comforted.

They cared about people they had never met.

Twenty-five years later, I can only pray that some of that kindness remains in their hearts.

It certainly remains in mine.

Twenty-five years have passed.

How can that possibly be?

September 11, 2001, feels like a lifetime ago. And yet, when I allow myself to go back there, I can remember that morning as though it happened yesterday.