The following was written by Kimberly Delaney. She is the daughter of the late Al Sword, a former reporter for the Times News.

Kimberly is a graduate of Panther Valley High School and is a native of Nesquehoning. She was working in Manhattan and witnessed firsthand the 9/11 attack.

This is my second attempt at putting together thoughts on the 25 year anniversary of Sept. 11, 2001. It shouldn’t be this hard. Should I simply recant what I saw, what my friends saw, what we did at work, or the overall feeling of anger, fear and patriotism all rolled into one?

Then the thought occurred to me to take this moment to honor my father, who’s memorial service was held on Sept. 12, 2006. He wrote for this paper and so for me to follow in his footsteps would make him proud, but also puts a lot of pressure on me to do this just right. He was a journalist, and while I do write a small blog for an equine magazine, my profession was in technology. So here I sit with guilt, pressure, sadness and a bubbling anger that I can’t quite contain.

In the past 25 years, we have all shared our experiences, our heartache and our fears on the anniversary of the day. I remember in 2002 walking out onto Maiden Lane in Manhattan for a moment of silence when the first plane hit. You could hear bells ringing throughout Downtown, I’m guessing from Trinity church. The sidewalks were full and the people were silent. Bells rang. People cried. Memories came flooding back and in 2002, they barely made a dent in the clean up, so we stood there in the ruins of a terror attack.

Time marched on and Downtown began to take on a new shape. Commuters, like myself, took three trains to get to work. Then we took charter fishing boats and ferries to get to South Street Seaport. As the years passed, we began to take a Ferry to the WTC site and walk across a makeshift bridge to walk over the site and emerge on the other side. Looking back, folks were so focused on simply getting to work that we were numb to the fact we were walking over Ground Zero — every. Single. Day.

Enough time has passed, so that we can now look in the rearview mirror and see how things have changed. What’s important, though, is we do so objectively. What happened that day? Where were you? There are people now entering the workforce who were not even born yet.

People in the Northeast lived it, the rest of the country watched it on TV. I now have a unique experience of having been there and 13 years later moving to Texas. People in Texas are very patriotic, but they watched it on TV — it’s not the same. There is a difference between going through something and “tuning in” to get updates. It happens all over the country for different reasons. We all don’t experience everything firsthand and we will never really understand the tragedy of a tornado or earthquake and how communities are affected. The fear. The struggle. The aftermath. There is no way to know but we come together as a Country to support those in need. Here is where I saw the biggest change.

The days, months and years following Sept. 11, 2001, we came together as Americans. We had that “Don’t Mess with America” attitude and flexed our muscle. We praised our rescue personnel and did what we could as citizens to support them. And while we were wounded, we were resilient.

I remember walking to work and seeing the U.S. Army trucks patrolling and soldiers in those trucks ready to respond to any threat. Sometimes it felt like I was in a movie as some “extra” asked to walk down the street during the aftermath of a bombing. I guess the mind has a way of protecting us from that which it cannot comprehend. And while we all have a different response to the question “where were you on Sept. 11?” there is one thing for sure, people who were there are very grounded in their response. There will be no gaslighting us.

In the past 25 years, we have gone from flexing our muscle and showing our resilience to denial and pandering. We have lost the backbone of the truth, which allows for varied stories based on opinion. We may hear the phrase “my truth” meaning what I know, not necessarily how it is. So, this article is “my truth.” What I saw, experienced and felt in the past 25 years. No one can tell me it wasn’t a plane or people weren’t cheering in N.J. I know it, I saw it myself. No TV, no one telling me what to see or think, me. Sorry, but you can’t really shake that out of someone.

When we look in the rearview mirror, we should be able to clearly see the path we took. Along that path are mistakes, triumphs, sadness, confusion, and joy. There is a saying, “those who do not know history are doomed to repeat it.” I would dare say, look in the rearview mirror and see the path for what it was, because if we don’t there will be danger ahead.

To Alfred Sword, my father, the man who called me on that day and waited for my phone call that night. The man who sat helplessly in Nesquehoning, Pa. knowing his little girl, who’s dream to work in NYC finally came true, may also take her. I hope this article made you proud, I did like you taught me — call a spade a spade and spoke from the heart.