I went down to the 9.11 Memorial this year with my flag and my tribute tee on. Family members and dignitaries get to stand right on the site. The rest of us, thousands of us, stood across the street. That was enough. Being close was enough.
People kept coming up to me all day. They wanted a picture with the flag, a picture with me, a picture to send home. I lost count. A mother brought her two little girls over and asked if they could stand next to it.
Right before I left the memorial, I saw the NYPD lining up their bagpipes. I got my phone out just in time. The first notes of America the Beautiful hit and something shifted in the whole crowd at once. Thousands of people, and within seconds it was silent.
Not quiet, silent. No phones ringing, no chatter, nobody shifting their weight. Just the pipes carrying over Ground Zero and a lot of strangers standing shoulder to shoulder trying not to cry.
It wasn’t sad exactly. It was reverent. It felt like the whole crowd had agreed, without a word, that this moment deserved everything we had.
Later that day, I walked through Times Square with the flag, the way I do. A woman stopped me, originally from India, and she said it with so much pride in her voice, “I’m an American citizen. Can I please take a picture with your flag?” I filmed it for her so she’d have it forever.
Later that evening, I met a couple visiting from Portugal who told me how much they loved this country and how badly they wished they could call it home, even just for a little while. They talked about when 9.11 happened and the impact on their lives, it was significant.
I posted the bagpipe video on TikTok that same day, September 11th. As of this week it has over 800,000 views, thousands of shares, hundreds of comments, thousands of saves and reposts.
And here’s the part that stopped me in my tracks: the comments aren’t just from Americans. They’re from Australia. Germany. England. Scotland. People writing in from all over the world, telling me what that day did to them too, telling me they were watching from thousands of miles away and it still broke their hearts.
One person wrote, “I’ve been crying all day. No family of mine was killed that day, but I do feel that every New Yorker and every person who loves this country got deeply affected. This is why I love social media. I never would have seen this otherwise. It absolutely gives me goosebumps. Thank you to all our first responders, living and dead. #NeverForget.” Someone else just wrote, “Wow, what a sound.” Another said it gave them a lump in their throat and a tear in their eye. One comment came from Germany: “Germany has also never forget.” Someone else wrote that it truly makes them proud to be born under the red, white, and blue. And one comment has stuck with me more than any other, four words: “Bring this America back.”
That’s when it hit me. If America gets lost, it isn’t just Americans who lose something. It’s everybody.
We forget sometimes, living inside it, what this country means to people who don’t have it. We forget that when someone in Lisbon or Manchester or Sydney watches New York on the anniversary of the worst day in our history, they’re not watching a foreign country’s tragedy. They’re watching something that belongs to all of them too, because whatever America is, whatever it stands for, it reaches past our own borders. A woman becomes a citizen and the first thing she wants is a picture with the flag. A couple from another continent stands in Times Square wishing they could stay. That’s not nothing. That’s not small.
Later that evening, we went back when the reflecting pools were open to the public. Thousands of people were there, praying, standing quietly, paying their respects. 9.11 will never be forgotten. Not because we owe it to the past to keep repeating a date, but because we owe it to each other to stay awake. To stay diligent. To protect what this country actually is, and what it was built on, starting with the Constitution that holds all of it together.
I give to Tunnel to Towers every single month, and I always will. Frank Siller started the foundation in the weeks after 9.11, after his brother Stephen, an FDNY firefighter, strapped on sixty pounds of gear and ran through the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel toward the towers and never came home. What began as a way to honor one man’s sacrifice has become a foundation that has paid off more than 1,700 mortgages for Gold Star families and fallen first responders, and committed over a billion dollars to the families left behind. That’s not a statistic to me. That’s a promise being kept, year after year.
The Never Forget collection is my own small way of doing a little more than the monthly donation, of putting something tangible behind it. Every shirt sold sends $5 straight to Tunnel to Towers. It’s not the point of this post and I don’t want it to be. It’s just one more way to stay diligent.
If you want to watch the bagpipes for yourself this will say more than I ever could with words. NYPD BAG PIPES
Never forget isn’t a slogan. Share this with someone who needs to hear it today, check out the Never Forget collection. My goal is to sell 500 before Sept 27. 2026, the next 5K Tunnels to Towers run, for every T-shrit sold I will donate $5.00 to the Tunnels to Towers Foundation.. If you would like to help me to get to my goal and donate to this worthy cause, here is the link to the collection. Never Forget Collection
God bless America
God Bless our First Responders especially our amazing NYPD and FDNY hero's their families, both past and present.
With love,
Christine Randall
Founder of The Lion and The Cross
2 comments
Thank you Gina, for shraing your story.Your father sounds like he was a great man. God Bless.
AMEN. Thank you for this post, for being there- for sharing your incredible experience on such a solemn day- and for inspiring pride in America! I read your post with a lump in my throat- there but for the grace of God, we move about our lives. Tragedy can strike any of us at any time- and when it does, we are so fortunate to have such dedicated first responders at the ready to leap into action, to put others before themselves and their own safety. May such a day as 911 never befall America again.
My father was an immigrant. He came here to work, assimilate and to contribute. No one gave him anything, other than the citizenship he dreamt of more than anything. He worked for that right- to be an American. The dream and promise of the greatest country on earth. It was everything he hoped for, and all that he needed. Filled with pride and determination, he strived and sacrificed and succeeded- via literal blood sweat and tears. He instilled that respect in me… for this land, the adoration for the opportunity it offered, the values of self-respect, of taking pride and of working hard. He passed away just one year ago, but I know he’d do it all again.
God bless America, my dad- and all those who seek to come here with a similar reverence in their hearts, for these are the same people, of the same mindset, who are willing to endure, to believe in freedom, and- to those who become first responders- to protect us all with their lives.