Some memories don’t need retelling every year. This one does.

A few months before 9/11, I was working in New York City. I had no idea at the time that I was standing in the middle of a moment that would change the course of history, and, honestly, the course of my life too. I remember the city the way most people who’ve lived there do: loud, fast, full of strangers who somehow still felt like neighbors. And then everything changed. I left New York not long after, but I carried a piece of it with me, a deep, quiet understanding of how fragile “normal” really is, and how much it matters to show up for the people around you while you still can. That experience planted something in me that took years to fully understand. Because when the world feels uncertain, the answer isn’t to pull inward, it’s to turn toward each other.

To be the kind of community that doesn’t wait for a tragedy to remember, we need one another. I didn’t run into a burning building that day. But I’ve spent the years since trying to build something that runs toward people instead of away from them.

So today, as we remember, I’d invite you to do something small: call a neighbor, hold the door, assume the best. Even in the hardest moments, that’s how light gets in.

We may be in Silicon Valley, but every one of us carries a little bit of New York with us today.