Every year on September 11, I’m transported back to that date in 2001. It was a Tuesday, and it was my first year at university in Brantford Ontario. I was getting ready for my first afternoon history class. That morning I turned on the television in my dorm apartment at around 9 am. Regis & Kelly was on, and they broke in to their guests, to bring coverage of the attacks going on.

The images of that day stick with me. The clips of people jumping from the burning buildings. The images of everyone, and everything coated in the thick white dust, and ash. In Brantford, I remember the eerie calm. It was a sunny late-summer, early autumn day. The trees weren’t blowing, and there were few people out on the street. It was as if the world paused to say “What next? What do we do? ” America our friend; everyone’s friend was attacked.

It has started to fade into the background. Memorable anniversaries; the first, the 5th, 10th and so on. But this year it’s sitting differently for me. Maybe it’s the fact I’m in the generation that went on to fight in Afghanistan. We’d lose 158 soldiers fighting the Taliban. Some were 3-5 years older than me.

Maybe it’s that we find ourselves again fighting an unseen enemy in COVID-19 that can strike at any time and come from anywhere. It has exacted a high cost on our lives, and continues to do so. Maybe like then, it emphasizes the fragility of life. You can make a split second decision to stop at a drugstore, or get stuck in traffic, like some did on that September day, and it saved their lives. And deciding not to do it today could also save a life.

Maybe it’s America herself. Before September 11 2001 it was the proverbial “shining city on a hill.” There was some sense of fairness, equality and optimism. And in the years since? The cracks have appeared in the foundation; slow at first with an economic slowdown. And then in 2016, and the election of Donald Trump showed that the cracks were worse than we thought. A full collapse is possible; not something the world thought possible.

The world was changed by 9/11, and we may have forgotten for a while how much. 19 years on, this pandemic demonstrates how different life is from then, and yet how heartbreakingly similar.