09/11/2026
My wife and I were recently in Midtown Manhattan a few weeks ago celebrating or 25th. She always has the idea when we’re there that she needs to go to the Century 21 store down around World Trade 1 to shop. Once we arrive Inevitably we realize that we’re weeks away from the 25th anniversary of the tragedy that was 911. As I toured through the museum across the street ,a small Church, what struck me the most ,tucked back into the corner, a shrine of flash badges from many of the first responders from across both the US and some from Canada,including many right from my own community .One month after we were married 25 years ago tragedy struck.Canadians showed up with boots, with hands, with hearts. Firefighters, police officers, nurses, ironworkers, volunteers — ordinary Canadians who became extraordinary by choosing courage over comfort. In those hours, there was no border. No difference. No “us” and “them.” Only neighbours. Only family. And in the middle of that devastation, there was one place where this brotherhood became unmistakably real: St. Paul’s Church, The Oldest Church in America, George Washington’s church of his inauguration where he worshiped,just steps from Ground Zero. It became a refuge — not from danger, but from despair. A place where exhausted first responders, covered in ash and grief, could sit for a moment and breathe. And Canadians were there too. They gathered quietly in the pews beside American firefighters who had just lost their entire companies. They prayed with them, cried with them, and held the silence with them when words were impossible.
We remember.