The Aftermath: No One Stands Alone

In her poem, “Singapore” — about witnessing a woman cleaning an airport toilet — Mary Oliver struggles with how to write about this image which initially disgusts her: “A poem should always have birds in it,/Kingfishers, say, with their bold eyes and gaudy wings./Rivers are pleasant, and of course, trees/ . . . A person wants to stand in a happy place, in a poem.”

Twenty-five years after one of our nation’s worst tragedies, a person wants to stand in a hopeful place, or, at a minimum, in a place that inspires hope. But I don’t think I can. Compared to the sudden, literally out-of-the-blue 9/11 attacks, the profound damage wrought by the current administration moves at a glacial yet steady pace. Nevertheless it is terrorizing so many in this country.

• Because of the current administration’s policies, independent scientific studies and public health reports estimate that specific federal decisions have contributed to tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of excess deaths.
• Cuts in global aid alone will risk 14 million more deaths in the next five years.
• The current administration’s economic agenda is costing the U.S. $300 billion per year and millions of jobs.
• Tariffs are costing Americans over $86 billion annually.
• The economic cost of federal program disruptions, workforce cuts, and halted investments have reached roughly $165.6 billion (about $1,028 per taxpayer).

Most of us don’t really notice this destruction because it is not impacting us immediately or even personally. But think of it this way: adding a grain of sand one at a time doesn’t seem to change the pile until the final grain makes the whole thing collapse.

On September 11, the planes hit all of us. Today, the cruel, xenophobic and draconian policies of the current administration are hitting all of us.

No one stands alone.

— On 9/11, we stood with Betty Ong, a flight attendant on American Flight 11.

— On 9/11, we stood with Peter Hanson and his two-year old daughter, Christine, on United Flight 175.

— On 9/11, we stood with Barbara Olson on American Flight 77.

— On 9/11, we stood with Mark Bingham on United Flight 93.

— On January 7, 2026, we stood with Renee Good in Minneapolis.

— On January 24, 2026, we stood with Alex Pretti in Minneapolis.

— On August 31, 2026, we stood with Pierre Damas Bel, a 20-year-old Haitian immigrant who died by suicide in Ohio.

No one stands alone.

All of this notwithstanding, I return to Oliver’s poem, “Singapore” with its beautiful line at the end where Oliver sees in the woman cleaning the airport toilet, “the light that can shine out of a life.” So in that spirit, here is my 100-word submission to the Washington Post when it — for its one-year 9/11 anniversary issue — asked readers what they learned from 9/11. Four thousand submissions were received. Forty were published.

Open hands to all, now more than ever.