I was 25 when 9/11 happened. I had just gotten married that July but I still didn't feel like an adult. I felt like someone doing the things that grownups do like having a job/career, getting married, thinking about home ownership, and contemplating the future. 9/11 was the point where I knew it was time to grow up because the world was forever changed in that moment. I watched it all as it happened. I was at work getting things ready for a seminar my building was hosting. I turned the TV on when my wife called me because the radio show she was listening to on her drive in talked about a plane hitting the World Trade Center. I turned the TV on for a few minutes and then the 2nd plane hit and I knew what we were looking at. We had flight attendants from American in our seminar and they all came out after being paged non-stop by their superiors. They knew people on the two planes that hit the towers. They immediately left and we decided to cancel the seminar. Then the first tower fell. Then the 2nd. Eventually, we all closed up and went home.
I didn't break down until a few nights later when the TV show was on with the celebrities and musicians giving tributes to the heroes and victims. I think it was the story of a guy who stayed to die with his friend who couldn't make it down the stairs of Tower 1 because he was disabled. The friend tried to carry him down but it was too much. So instead of fleeing, he stayed to die with his friend. And that story finally broke the dam inside me. I don't think I had cried like that since I was a kid.
This is an amazing read about The Falling Man, his story, and the photographer who took the picture.
https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a48031/the-falling-man-tom-junod/