Darling Nikki

09/10/2026

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09/10/2026

I don’t fly on September 11th anymore.

I didn’t always have that rule.

On September 11, 2001, I was a freshman in college.

I remember walking across campus, headed toward what I believe was my first class of the day, when someone said something to me about what had happened. Like so many people, I didn’t immediately understand the magnitude of what I was hearing.

And then my father called.

My father had a military background, and I will never forget the way he spoke to me that morning. He was calm but extremely serious. Direct. Almost like he was giving orders.

He told me he was coordinating calls between our family members scattered from the East Coast to the Midwest. Our family is from New Jersey, although I was away at school, and at that point nobody knew how large the attack was, whether more attacks were coming, or where.

His message to me was essentially: Be prepared. Find out where your university’s shelters are. Pay attention. Know where you need to go. We do not know what is happening yet.

And I remember desperately trying to call my grandmother back home in New Jersey.

I couldn’t get through.

The phone lines were overwhelmed, and I panicked.

In my 18-year-old mind, I imagined attacks beginning on the East Coast and moving across the country. I just wanted to hear my grandmother’s voice and know that she was okay.

I never could have imagined that years later, I would become a flight attendant.

And certainly not that I would one day put on the uniform and pin on the wings of one of the airlines forever connected to that day.

That carries a weight that is difficult to explain unless you have felt it.

September 11th is different from inside aviation.

I flew on September 11th during my first couple of years as a flight attendant. For many passengers I encountered, understandably, it seemed to be another travel day.

For me, it never was.

There are airports where I have walked corridors they walked.

There are gates where I have stood knowing members of our profession passed through them for the final time.

There are crew rooms, terminals and sacred little spaces within aviation where history doesn’t feel like something that happened in a documentary.

It feels close.

And then there are the people.

Coworkers whose lives and careers were directly touched by that day. People who remember. People who lost someone. People who were there. People carrying stories they sometimes entrusted to me.

I would listen.

I would look into their eyes.

I would hold space for whatever came.

And somewhere along the way, I realized that I was carrying it too.

There is something about September 11th that I don’t experience only intellectually. I feel it in my body. In my bones. In my spirit.

And eventually I had to admit that flying on that particular day was simply too much for me.

So I don’t anymore.

I try to keep September 11th available for remembrance. For reflection. Sometimes simply for quiet.

I haven’t figured out exactly what I want that tradition to become as the years continue. Maybe someday I will.

But for now, this is one small boundary I keep.

Because every year when I pin on my wings, I understand that I belong to a profession whose history includes extraordinary courage on one of America’s darkest days.

Those flight attendants were not simply serving beverages.

They were aviation safety professionals facing circumstances no crew should ever have had to face.

They were our colleagues.

They were somebody’s mother.
Somebody’s father.
Somebody’s daughter.
Somebody’s son.
Somebody’s friend.
Somebody’s crew.

And they went to work that morning just like we do.

So no, September 11th has never become “just another day” for me.

And I don’t think it ever will.

In remembrance of the flight crews, passengers, first responders, families, and every life forever changed by September 11, 2001.

Never forgotten. 🪽

09/09/2026

It’s fascinating how your body keeps the score.

It absolutely does.

It holds grief. It remembers experiences whether you asked it to or not. Long after your mind has forgotten certain dates, your body still knows.

Sometimes you’ll wonder why you suddenly feel heavy. Why you’re anxious. Angry. Sad. Unsettled. Why something feels off when nothing has happened that day.

And then you look at the calendar.

And it hits you.

Your body remembered before your mind did.

Trauma doesn’t necessarily leave. It can change. You can heal. You can grow. You can build a beautiful life so much larger than what happened to you. But some things leave an imprint.

And I’ve stopped believing that healing requires pretending otherwise.

I don’t believe everything is worthy of forgiveness. I don’t believe everyone is capable of—or even interested in—reformation. And I don’t believe surviving someone obligates you to eventually make peace with who they chose to be.

But I do believe this:

Protect your children.

Protect them fiercely.

Because what children are taught to tolerate can become what adults unconsciously recognize as familiar.

And familiar can feel like love—even when it looks dangerously similar to the very thing that hurt them in the first place.

Protect your children so they don’t have to spend adulthood learning that what happened to them was never supposed to feel normal.

09/09/2026

09/09/2026

Betty Ann Ong was 45 years old and a flight attendant with American Airlines for 14 years. On the morning of September 11, 2001, she was working aboard American Airlines Flight 11 from Boston to Los Angeles. After the aircraft was hijacked, Ong was in the rear of the plane when she used an Airfone to contact American Airlines' reservations office in Cary, North Carolina.

At approximately 8:20 a.m., she began calmly reporting what she knew. “The cockpit's not answering,” she said. “Somebody's stabbed in business class ... I think there's mace ... that we can't breathe. I don't know, I think we're getting hijacked.” With information from fellow crew members, she continued relaying details about the emergency, including the location of injured people and the cockpit situation. Her call provided American Airlines and others on the ground with some of the earliest detailed information from aboard a hijacked aircraft.

Ong remained in contact with American Airlines personnel as Flight 11 continued toward New York. The 9/11 Commission later recognized the remarkable professionalism and compassion shown by Ong and her fellow crew members. At 8:46:40 a.m., Flight 11 struck the North Tower of the World Trade Center. Betty Ong and everyone else aboard were lost.

Today, Betty Ann Ong is remembered for her calm voice during one of the most confusing moments of that morning. The Betty Ann Ong Foundation continues her legacy, and the Betty Ann Ong Chinese Recreation Center in San Francisco bears her name. Betty Ong. Flight attendant. Sister. Daughter. A woman whose professionalism and courage are still remembered. ✈️💙

09/08/2026

It annoys me when someone asks, “Are you busy?” YES. The answer is Always Yes. Now what do you want? Just get straight to the point!

09/08/2026

For the first time in all my 40 something years of life ALL my doctors are black even my orthodontist!!!!!

09/08/2026

It’s my first semester back in college in SO many years. 😩📚

One of my professors just emailed the assignments for the semester and it suddenly hit me…

SCHOOL STARTS THIS WEEK.

For my children.

AND FOR ME.

What the HELL was I thinking?! 😭😂 I’m scared AF!

This year, my household is officially serving:

📚 5th Grade — Elementary School
📚 7th Grade — Junior High
📚 Freshman — High School (MAGNET)
🎓 Culinary Degree — COMPLETED!
🎓 Senior — Undergraduate University Student
📚 And then there’s ME… an old-ass returning college student with a sh*tload of music credits that apparently have nowhere to go. 😭🤣

So here I am, getting an undergraduate degree in something ELSE… and after that, who the hell knows. 😂

But one thing I DO know:

My babies need to see their mother finish the things she once conspired to do.

They’ve watched me work.
They’ve watched me struggle.
They’ve watched me raise them.
They’ve watched me start over more times than I care to count.

Now they’re going to watch me FINISH. 💪🏾🎓❤️

So apparently we’re ALL going back to school. 😩😂

And now I’ll have student loans for one kid AND myself.

GoFundMe coming soon. 😭🤣🤣🤣

I’M KIDDING.

…I think. 👀😂

Either way, I’ll figure it TF out like I always do.

Class is in session, babies. 📚🎓

09/06/2026

Last night, one of my friends was on his way to our gig.

He never made it to the stage.

And I need to explain what that actually felt like.

This is someone who would NEVER just no-show. Someone who would never ignore my calls and texts and leave us wondering where he was.

So when the minutes kept passing and he still wasn’t there, I knew something was wrong.

I kept calling.

I kept texting.

I kept looking toward the door.

And eventually, I had to do something that made my stomach drop: take his microphone off the stage.

The show still had to go on.

So we performed.

We smiled. We worked. We entertained people.

And underneath all of that, I was scared as hell because I had no idea where my friend was or whether he was okay.

That kind of anxiety is hard to explain. Your body is doing one thing because the job requires it, while your mind is somewhere else completely, running through every possibility.

By the end of the night, I knew something wasn’t right.

Eventually, we learned that he had been pulled over by a police officer.

And this morning, I am sitting with the uncomfortable reality that I believe that officer may have saved my friend’s life.

My friend wasn’t drunk. He wasn’t high. He wasn’t being “a problem.”

He was experiencing a serious medical emergency related to diabetes and didn’t even know it.

The officer noticed that something was wrong.

His symptoms could have VERY easily been interpreted another way. Dilated eyes. Confusion. Abnormal behavior.

And we have all seen how quickly those things can become accusations, escalation, handcuffs, force, humiliation—or worse—when the person experiencing them is Black.

But this officer did something painfully simple.

He saw a human being who needed help.

He called an ambulance.

He made sure my friend’s car was safely parked instead of having it impounded.

He got him transported for medical care, where he is now receiving the treatment he needs.

He did not treat him like a drug addict.

He did not treat him like a criminal.

He did not treat him like an inconvenience.

He treated him like a life worth preserving.

And THAT is what “protect and serve” is supposed to mean.

There is a part of me that wants to scream THANK YOU to this officer because I understand all too well how differently this morning could have looked when the sentence started with:

“Our Black friend got pulled over and never made it to the gig.”

And then there is another part of me that hates that compassionate, competent policing feels extraordinary enough to deserve a whole post.

Because it shouldn’t be extraordinary.

It should be the standard.

Still, today I am grateful.

Grateful that this officer saw the problem without deciding that my friend WAS the problem.

Grateful that somebody chose care before suspicion.

Grateful that my friend is alive, safe, and exactly where he needs to be.

And after a night of standing on a stage pretending everything was okay while knowing in my gut that it wasn’t, I am especially grateful that today we finally have answers.

See the human being first.

Every single time.