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When Monica Spoletini tells people she was born on Sept. 11, 2001, “Nine times out of 10 I get a look and … nine times out of 10 the second question is ‘on the year? On 2001?’
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“And I just smile and (say) yep,” she says.
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2026 marks the 25th anniversary of the hijacked airplane strikes on the Twin Towers, the Pentagon, and the crash of a fourth plane in Pennsylvania. All told, the attacks claimed the lives of 2,977 people, including 24 Canadians.
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On that same day, as many as 13,238 people were born in the United States. It’s not known exactly how many Canadians also took their first breath Sept. 11, 2011, but Statistics Canada says average daily births in September in that period numbered 1,067.
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Among those Canadians were Monica and her twin brother, born in Chestermere, Alta. Both will turn 25 on Sept. 11. Spoletini now works as a hairdresser in Edmonton, where her family moved when she was 12. (Her brother declined an interview.)
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Neither twin has yet visited the 9/11 memorial in New York City; however, they were acquainted with the events of 9/11 from a young age, because their father read them articles about it, says Monica Spoletini.
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“(He) wanted to educate us a little bit (about) why everyone knows our birthday so much and why it’s so recognized,” Spoletini says.
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One of her most vivid memories is of an old article that her parents framed on the wall, featuring her family. “I would say maybe (we were) eight or nine years old, and we could really understand why” it was so significant.
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Christopher Rutkowski was born in Oshawa, Ont. on Sept. 11, 2001.
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He says some of his friends believe he is a reincarnated 9/11 victim. “I was born about six hours before the first plane hit. And I have a birthmark on the right side of my face.” His friends theorize that he was initially a financier working in the towers. “I didn’t make it (out alive) — and then, ‘real Christopher’ was born.”
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Rutkowski has visited the memorial at the site of the World Trade Centre three times, the most recent visit in August.
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“I never realized the gravity of my birthday until the first time my dad took me to New York when I was 10 years old,” he says. He also visited on his 15th birthday.
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With his father, he went to the Ground Zero museum, which he recalls displayed “steel columns and pillars and escalators (from the site)… and people’s stories and phone recordings.”
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Rutkowski, who calls himself a “big reader,” says he has spent years expanding his home library dedicated to 9/11 to properly commemorate the event.