I always get a bit nervous when writing about the events of Sept. 11, 2001, mostly because I’m never sure I can give it the reverence it deserves. I was not directly affected that day, but I lived close enough to it so that a quarter of a century later it still lives vividly in my mind, and I carry a great deal of sorrow for those many people I know who were directly affected, who suffered great loss that late-summer morning. I am from the “never forget generation,” so to speak—a young adult at the time living and working in the shadows of New York City skyline of North Jersey across the Hudson River. I lived that day, like a lot of people around the country, and the world, for that matter. So, It’s rather hard to simply forget.

This anniversary has become a day of empathy and sorrow for me. I arrived at my office ready to take my place on the cubicle farm I worked on at the time only to find a suddenly quiet and sullen cadre of co-workers huddled around radios, mobilizing conference room TVs, and trying to get the fledging internet to keep up.

Unfortunately, we tried to console at least one co-worker who had a sibling in the towers and others who frantically tried to locate sons, daughter, husbands and wives working in Lower Manhattan—in a time when for most people’s cell phones where barely functional and email was confined to your desktop computer.

We lost two executives on American Airlines Flight 11 that day. That co-worker who worried about her sister, sadly, never saw her again. Later, I came to find out that a neighbor in my small New Jersey enclave never returned from work. We all know someone who suffered that day, I’m sure.

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To add to the angst of the moment, we heard about a plane falling from the sky in Shanksville, Pa., which happens to be near the town where I grew up. My parents where in the hospital nearby with my grandmother who, like many people nearing their nineties, was on a slow walk toward the end of her life. The families of those in that plane never had that chance of closure. Their loved ones were here in the morning, and then suddenly gone.

So why am I writing such a column on a process automation website? I’d like to tell you it’s because of some connection to the technology we all talk about everyday—something I often do as an editor and columnist—but there is no real connection to discuss today. Today is about never forgetting. So, I’m not. I won’t.

We live in a very distracted world, one that tends to put  history behind us and move on to the next argument or pop-culture phenomenon of the day. Today, I’d like to invite everyone reading this to join me in taking a break from all of that on this 25th anniversary of the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon. Let’s never forget the victims and the pain their families still endure and remember the heroes who gave their lives on United Flight 93.

It truly was a day that changed the world. Whether you where there or not, alive or not, we are all still living with the aftermath of that tragic day.