I’m writing to you from the United States of Ashes.

Where the dust is still settling twenty-four years later.

Where who we were that day, and in the days after, would never believe what we’ve become today.

I remember the world before.

September 10th, 2001 was the last day I ever felt safe. Truly safe. That safety was uneven, fragile, never promised to everyone. But it was real enough that when it was gone, you could feel the difference in your bones.

The morning after, the ground shifted. Smoke poured into the sky. Towers fell. Families were torn apart. And for those of us who lived it, the air never cleared completely. The ash clung to us. It still does.

I think about the generation now old enough to vote who never breathed that air. Who didn’t watch the towers fall on live television. For them, 9/11 is history, the way Pearl Harbor was history for me. A lesson. A photo. A memorial.

But history feels different when you didn’t live it.

When I first stood at Pearl Harbor as a teenager, I felt the weight. Years later, when I returned with my children, it struck deeper. But it was still not the same as waking up to the sound of bombs dropping. Not the same as running for cover. Not the same as wondering if tomorrow would even come.

And that’s how it is for those who weren’t alive on September 11th. They can study it. They can visit Ground Zero. They can see the names carved in stone. But they cannot feel the ash in their lungs, or the quiet terror in their bloodstream.

I don’t want anyone to have to go through those horrible times, even those of us who were not anywhere near the World Trade Center that day, but I wish they could have experienced how different the world was before the planes were all hijacked, and maybe the days right after when we all came together.

But that is in the past, and the United States of Ashes is where we live now.

And in those ashes, I remember.

I remember leadership. Not perfect, but present. George W. Bush was not a flawless man or president, but he faced the moment with something we no longer have: competence. Direction. A steadiness that steadied us, too.

And I look at today and wonder: what would Trump do if it happened now?

Would he comfort families? Would he speak for the nation? Would he carry us through the smoke?

Or would he do what he always does, exploit tragedy, divide us further, and look for ways to profit from pain?

I don’t wonder for long. We already know.

We’ve seen what’s been dismantled.

The counterterrorism offices built after 9/11, shuttered.
The safety nets designed to keep watch, stripped away.
The experts who tracked threats, driven out or silenced.

Hollowed out. Cut apart. Left in ruins.

And that leaves us with the question no one in power seems willing to answer:
If it happened again, who would be there to respond?

Who would sound the alarm before the first plane hit?
Who would catch the warning signs in time to stop it?
Who would step forward when the dust was still in the air and steady a nation that couldn’t breathe?

Because the truth is, the very systems that once stood guard are gone. And the man in charge who destroyed them has no interest in bringing them back.

We are facing a new wave of dark days, and I keep looking for the heroes that emerged from the dust all those years ago.

People like the firefighters who ran into burning towers. The police officers who carried the wounded and disabled down stairwells.

The strangers who held strangers in the smoke. Arms wrapped around people they had never met. Hands reaching through the dark to pull someone forward. No politics. No questions. Just humanity.

The passengers of Flight 93 who said: not today. Not on our watch. I can’t even imagine the bravery and selflessness that took.

And I remember the survivors. Breathing dust so toxic it would seed cancers and diseases for the rest of their lives. Still fighting a war that never ended.

And I remember the families. Still waking up every morning missing someone who should be here.

But more than anything, I remember the unity.

Do you remember?

Because for a moment, the ashes bound us together. We weren’t red states and blue states. We weren’t Democrats and Republicans. We were just Americans. And that meant something.

I remember Canadians opening their doors when planes were grounded. Tiny towns doubling in size overnight because people said, “Stay here. You’re safe with us.”

I remember the emails from my international clients. People in cities and villages across the world who barely knew where San Diego was, writing to ask if we were okay. Offering prayers. Sending blessings.

They told me: America always gets back up. America is the land of freedom. America is the good guy.

One client even offered to send me a large sum of money to “use as I saw fit.” Because when America was on its knees, the world believed it had to help us stand again. Because when they needed us, we had been there for them. This was their time to be there for us.

I told him his words were enough. But he said everyone he knew felt helpless, watching a great nation like ours suffer so terribly. I declined his offer, but I carried the weight of his pain, felt even from so far away, as he watched what was happening to America.

We were the good guys.

But are we anymore?

Because now, in the ashes of who we were, I see something different.

Instead of welcoming those who need help, we’re rounding them up.
Dragging people from their jobs. From their homes. From their streets.
Targeted for their language. For their skin. For their poverty.

That is not America.
That is the undoing of America.

And our leaders? They carry ash on their hands. The Vice President using Air Force Two to ferry Charlie Kirk’s body home. A man who spent his life tearing down women, mocking equality, pushing submission. A man who championed the un-American.

My tax dollars. Your tax dollars. Used for that.

That is not patriotism. That is betrayal.

If you had told me twenty-four years ago that the people who once praised our courage would one day send messages warning their families not to travel here, I would have thought you were describing some nightmare future. If you had said back then that the world would look at America and see danger, division, hostility, I would have said you were wrong.

But here we are.

The United States of Ashes.

And the ash stings.

Because the America I remember is not the America I see.

And now free speech itself is burning.

The U.S. government is now threatening action against foreigners who don’t respond to Charlie Kirk’s murder in the way our leaders demand. Think about that. Free speech, guaranteed to all on our soil, carved down to “some.”

And this isn’t about how any of us feel about his death. It isn’t about whether we agree or disagree with what people say about it.

It’s about something deeper. It’s about a fundamental American promise: that speech is free, even when it’s uncomfortable, even when it’s ugly, even when it isn’t what those in power want to hear.

They say it’s just visa holders. Just foreigners. Just them.

But authoritarianism always begins with just them.

And then it becomes just dissenters. Just protesters. Just journalists. Just you. Just me.

That’s how freedom dies. Not all at once. Piece by piece. Ash by ash.

History tells us this.

McCarthyism began with blacklists and ended with silenced voices.
Kent State began with protests and ended with students shot dead.
The Berlin Wall began with barbed wire and ended with families divided for decades.

But history also tells us something else.

Pearl Harbor began with fire and ended with fascism defeated.
The March on Washington began with inequality and ended with Dr. King’s dream echoing across the world.
The Berlin Wall also ended, with the people tearing it down, brick by brick, until light poured through the cracks.

We’ve seen both. The slide into silence and the rise into freedom. The choice between authoritarianism and democracy. The difference between ashes that bury us and ashes we rise from.

And today, another reminder: the former Brazilian president, Jair Bolsonaro, was sentenced to twenty-seven years for plotting a coup after his 2022 electoral defeat.

A man who thought he was untouchable. A man who stoked division and tried to burn democracy to the ground. Sentenced. Accountable.

And let’s not forget, Bolsonaro wasn’t some distant figure. He called Trump his friend. Trump praised him as a great leader. Their movements mirrored each other: attacks on the press, contempt for science, assaults on democracy itself.

So when Bolsonaro falls, it’s not just Brazil’s story. It’s ours.

Because if Brazil can hold a strongman accountable, then so can we.

So today, on the 24th anniversary of September 11th, I hold two truths in my hands.

One is grief, for the lives lost, for the safety we lost, for the unity we let slip through our fingers.

The other is hope, that justice is still possible, that dictators can fall, that democracy can rise from the ashes.

But hope doesn’t rise on its own.

It rises because people protect it. Because we refuse to forget who we were and who we can be. Because we refuse to let memory fade into silence.

We cannot just remember.
We must act.

We must demand leaders who protect us, not exploit us.
We must demand an America worthy of its name.
The America that once stood for courage and fairness.
The American people believed in when they lifted prayers across oceans and lit candles in our honor.

Because we were the good guys once.
And we can be again.

If we choose to rise from the ashes.

I’ll see you tomorrow,
Heather