This is the final post in our 9/11 series, and I saved it for last because I needed to live it first.
When we started this series, I wrote that Never Forget isn't a slogan. It's a verb. This past weekend, I got to watch 30,000 people live that out in the pouring rain.
The Tunnel to Towers 5K follows the path of Stephen Siller, the firefighter who ran through the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel in full gear on 9/11 to reach the towers, and gave his life there. I have run this race for many years. This year marked 25 years since that day, and a nor'easter rolled into New York the night before. Wind, rain, flooding everywhere. All night we kept checking the website to see if the run had been cancelled. It was not.
I'll be honest with you. I was afraid.
In past years, getting to the start meant lining up by South Street Seaport and taking a ferry across to Red Hook, Brooklyn. The thought of that ferry on stormy seas made my stomach turn. Then I read that the tunnel itself might have water in it. Those are the kinds of things that bring real fear up in me.
Thirty thousand runners were signed up. Many of them were first responders and firefighters who travel here from all over the country every single year. When I let my mind drift toward everything that could go wrong, I kept coming back to that. I would be running among living heroes, to honor the ones who never came home.
And I knew something else. My daughter, her roommate, and I would be safe out there. If anything went wrong, in that tunnel or on that road, the people running beside us were the very people who run toward danger when everyone else runs away. When the rest of us are scared, firefighters and police officers are the ones who help, who save, and who bring comfort. That's exactly what they did 25 years ago. There was no safer place in New York that morning than in the middle of them.
So with faith and confidence, we decided to run.
We took an Uber from uptown and picked up my daughter and her roommate in the Financial District. It was her roommate's first time doing the run. She's from Michigan, and I was so glad she got to see this. We skipped the ferry and crossed the bridge into Brooklyn instead, which is its own small test for me, because I have a fear of bridges too. We got as close as the car could take us and walked the rest of the way in the wind and rain. It was 6:30 in the morning and still dark.
And then something shifted. As we walked, I saw big groups of people coming out of the dark from every direction, all heading toward the starting line. Just like that, the fear was gone. I felt calm. I felt excited. I wasn't worried at all.
The race didn't start until 9:30, so we had plenty of time to stand, wait, and get soaked. That's where we met a lovely couple from North Carolina. He is a firefighter. She is a retired Marine Corps veteran. They told us they felt pulled to this race this year, and no nor'easter was going to keep them away. It didn't keep away the thousands of others either. We laughed, we smiled, and we bonded like old friends, all of us dripping wet and not caring one bit.
Then we ran.
The tunnel, by the way, was completely dry. The only wet things in there were the bodies running through it.
It is hard to put into words what it feels like to run through that tunnel among heroes. People chant "USA! USA! USA!" and it echoes off the walls. There are firefighters in full uniform. There are young people and whole families carrying photos of the person they lost. There are entire fire departments running together, from cities and towns across the state and the country.
Here is what struck me most. There is no pushing. There are no arguments. There are smiles, and some tears. For those few miles, nobody is anything but American. The unity and pride you feel is not something a written or spoken word can fully carry. It is something you have to experience.
When you come up out of the tunnel into Manhattan, a line of firefighters and police officers stands on both sides of the road in their formal dress uniforms. They hold the American flag and banners with the faces of the heroes who died that day. They cheer you on. That line of cheers keeps going, with ROTC cadets young and old shouting encouragement as you run in the rain, up the hills, toward a finish line that faces One World Trade Center.
There is nothing like it.
It isn't a long race. It's a 5K, and plenty of people who do it aren't runners. Some walk, some run, and some, like me, do a little of both. I walked and ran the whole way with my daughter's roommate. My daughter and my husband are real runners, so they flew ahead and were waiting for us at the finish line. We were all soaked, all excited, and all together.
I also got to do something this year that meant a great deal to me. Through our Never Forget collection, I handed the Tunnel to Towers Foundation a check, and they were so grateful. I'll be honest here too. I set a goal of 500 shirts, and so far we've sold 10. That's 490 to go, and I'm not stopping. I donate $5 to Tunnel to Towers for every shirt sold from the Never Forget collection. If each of you who reads this helps close that gap, we'll get there together.
[Shop the Never Forget collection →]
And if you want to go straight to the source, I'd love for you to consider what I do myself. Tunnel to Towers was started by Stephen Siller's family to keep doing good in his name. Today they provide mortgage-free homes to Gold Star families and the families of fallen first responders with young children, and build specially adapted smart homes for catastrophically injured veterans and first responders. They ask for just $11 a month, a small number chosen in honor of 9/11. I give monthly, and it's one of the easiest ways I know to turn Never Forget into something you do.
Just so I'm clear, I'm not a representative of the Tunnel to Towers Foundation, and I don't speak for them. I'm a New Yorker and a proud American who cares deeply about this cause and wants to help in whatever small way I can.
Give $11 a month to Tunnel to Towers →
I am proud and honored to be a very small part of something this big. Twenty-five years later, the heroes are still showing up. In the wind and the rain, they are still showing up.
That's what Never Forget looks like. So let's keep showing up too.
If this post meant something to you, please share it with someone who remembers, or someone who needs to.
Visit thelionandthecross.com to see read our other blogs, and view all of our collections. New items arriving soon.
And God bless our military, our first responders, and the families who still carry that day with them.
Please leave a comment, it means so much to me.
In Gratitude,
Christine Randall