Healing takes time. For the families of the 147 people from Bergen County who died in the collapse of the Twin Towers on Sept. 11, 2001, the focus will always be on them. On this 25th anniversary, the names of victims from Bergen and beyond will be read again as bells ring and people grieve.

That said, there’s hardly a person who was alive on that day of infamy who doesn’t remember where they were and how their own lives were affected. There should be room for those memories to be preserved, too. Some will seem trivial compared to the magnitude of loss suffered by the families of those who died in the attack. Yet, for the sake of those who weren’t yet born on 9/11, the full picture of people going about their business that day should be preserved.

Most of us were neither victims nor heroes on 9/11. Some of us remember being forced to return from the airport because our flights were suddenly canceled; or having an annual checkup interrupted mid-paper gown because a doctor was suddenly summoned to pick up their kids at school; or our long-distance phone calls failing to go through because lines were jammed.

In my case, I was on the 45th floor of an office building on Broadway north of Times Square at Hachette Filipacchi........

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