When my editor asked me to write a story about the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, my first thought was that every story worth telling about 9/11 already had been told.
No event in my lifetime has been so thoroughly covered. I've written countless articles about it myself. I dreaded the idea of contacting people with personal connections to the tragedy, people who lost loved ones that day, for a story I didn't believe would say anything new.
But then I found Lynn Faulkner's phone number and gave him a call. Faulkner lost his wife, Wendy, in the south tower of the World Trade Center on 9/11. I'd never interviewed him, but he'd spoken to other reporters in the early years after 9/11. He seemed like someone who might be able to give me some guidance.
He ended up doing far more than that. Twenty-five years after 9/11, he was struggling not just with his loss, but with the sense that something profound had changed.
The rest of the nation had not forgotten the day or the lives lost, but the passing of time had created a gap between the families of the victims and their fellow Americans. Faulkner wasn't bitter about it. He wasn't surprised, either. But it still felt important to him.
His attempt to better understand why this happened became the basis of the story I wrote today about Faulkner's life since 9/11.
He graciously invited me and Enquirer photographer Sam Greene to his home in Mason, Ohio, where he showed us a small memorial to Wendy, a flag he flies daily in honor of 9/11 victims, and a note and other items from his late wife that inspired him and his two daughters to start a charity in her name.
Faulkner also introduced us to his wife, Aletha, who he met four years after Wendy's death and who, he says, changed his life for the better. "I truly believe God took pity on me," he said.
The time I spent with Faulkner reminded me why I do this work. People who share their stories with us help us to see the world through their eyes instead of our own.
When they do, even familiar stories can surprise us.
This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Why we wrote about 9/11, a quarter century later
