Rose and Andy Bingham didn't have much of a wedding.

They took off to Vegas one summer and got married in front of two paid witnesses. They're not ones to celebrate anniversaries, either. One of them might remember a few days later, but there's always too much going on to make much of a fuss. The St. Louis-area couple have been busy raising their four children, along with a few they've taken in over the years. Their grandson also lives with them now.

For much of her life, Rose, 52, has been the one who takes care of people. She worked as an oncology nurse for 25 years, tending to cancer patients and their families; Andy teaches social studies.

About nine years ago, she had an excruciating headache. Her husband asked if he should call 911.

"Yes, call 911," she said. "I'm dying."

In fact, an artery had burst in her brain. It was a random incident that required surgery and left her in a coma for three weeks. When she woke up, she was almost completely blind. She had another surgery, and remembers putting on her glasses, starting to cry and shouting, "I can read!" The aneurysm left her balance a bit off, but Rose returned to work.

A year after her first surgery, she needed a cerebral bypass. She had a stroke during that surgery, but after rehab, she went back to work. Not long after that, increased dizziness and vomiting led doctors to suspect more brain problems. She had another surgery in January 2011 to drain the fluid around her brain stem, and woke up paralyzed from the neck down.

She recalled being in rehab and asking her doctor if she would be walking by the end of the year.

"I was just floored when he told me it was permanent."

She felt gut-punched. "I walked fast, everywhere. Now I'm in a chair," she said. "I was a tall 5'9"; now I'm 4 feet."

A life-changing injury changes more than the individual's life. It changes the lives of everyone else around them.

When we become parents, we're constant caretakers. It's hard to imagine we could be the ones needing help, especially in the prime of our lives.

One of Rose's sons, who is 24, lives with them and helps Andy take care of her. Some of their son's friends who had lived with them helped, as well. Rose says she probably hasn't been very gracious about going from being a caregiver to needing a caretaker. Nurses are in the habit of giving. There have been times when she struggled with deep depression. But most of the time, she considers herself lucky.

"My life is certainly better than a lot of people's," she said recently.

The nurses she worked with have stood by her. They bring snacks to their regular get-togethers, tell stories and laugh like lifelong friends.

"Rose is still Rose," one of them said.

Earlier this year, Rose confided a secret wish to her friends. This summer was going to be her and Andy's 25th wedding anniversary, and she wanted to renew their vows. Would they help her?

Her friends started making lists. One of them volunteered her backyard garden for the ceremony. They divided up the food. They made invitations. Someone ordered a cake; someone else got champagne. A spouse offered to play his guitar, and another offered to take photos. Someone hired a makeup artist.

Rose bought a $77 wedding dress online.

"I wanted my husband to think I was beautiful so that he would remember why he married me," she said, thinking of all the unglamourous daily tasks he does for her. "I wanted him to look at me as his wife again. Not as his patient."

Worried about standing long enough to say her vows, Rose worked on her strength in physical therapy, but still can only stand for a few minutes with her walker. When the celebration on June 25 arrived, Andy chose to sit in a chair. He wanted to look into her eyes while he read the vows he had written.

"The struggles we have had could do one of two things to a couple: push them apart or bring them closer together. And in our case, it has bonded us together for life," Andy said. "... Being with you has taught me the meaning of true love, responsibility and commitment ... You have held this family together for the past 25 years, and we will always need the love and support that you give us all ... I renew my vows to you, pledging my undying love to you, and ready to embark on the next 25 years of our journey together."

The party was a few days after their real anniversary, but it's a day neither will ever forget.

Fifteen years ago, everything changed.

We witnessed the worst terrorist attack on American soil -- live, on television. All of it seemed unreal; events we had never imagined.

That morning I tried to call my relatives who worked in the Twin Towers to see if they had escaped the destruction.

All circuits were busy. I kept hearing that recording.

The horror and fear of that day and the days that followed remains vivid. The stories and images of those who died, the heroes who saved others, the families who lost so much, set against a backdrop of tears and anger. As an American Muslim, or anyone perceived to be, there was the added trauma of feeling displaced, under suspicion, or worse, attacked, in her own country. In the middle of that fragility, there was also a sense of coming together. There was a unity in politics and within our communities that many of us had not experienced before.

The current generation of parents raising young children didn't live through the Vietnam War or the assassination of John F. Kennedy. It was Sept. 11 that changed us, and our country.

The aftermath led us into a terrible, prolonged war in Iraq. We sacrificed freedoms, a sacrifice lured by the promise of greater security. We turned a blind eye to human rights violations we scorn in other countries because we were told it was necessary to protect the nation.

Our children, born after those attacks, have never known what America was like before them.

By the end of this year, there will be about 60 million children, about eight times the population of New York, born in America since 9/11.

The oldest of these post-9/11 children are in high school, and more acutely aware of the political world around them, especially in this reality show of an election season.

How can they know the extent of everything that changed, all that was lost?

The post-9/11 children seem more jaded. The internet has exposed them to everything too early. They've watched videos of that day in classrooms. Maybe they didn't have a loss of innocence moment like we did, because when did they get to be innocents? Their generation's defining moment could have been the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut. It wasn't the first school shooting, nor was it the worst, but the victims were so young. Adam Lanza, 20, murdered 20 six- and seven-year-olds -- first graders -- and six teachers. But unlike the seismic shift in priorities after the terrorists attacked, nothing changed after scores of school shootings. Well, we conditioned our children to be more vigilant and more afraid. We've taught them to always be on alert -- for school intruders, for online predators, for the next terrorist attack.

They've never known a nation at peace. They're growing up in an endless war on terror.

I asked my middle schoolers how they imagined the country was different before 9/11.

"Maybe there was less security," the younger one said, who spent much of the fourth grade worried about ISIS. The eighth grader wondered if there was less Islamophobia before.

They read the paper. Their generation has heard the rhetoric. They know how divided the country feels. They have their friends and schools and activities and typical adolescent pressures. But they experience it all within a chronic haze of anxiety that is our national landscape.

What a time to grow up.

Every year on this day, I remember the victims of those attacks and all the other losses that followed from those moments.

I mourn the lives lost and this seemingly endless state of war. I think of those who exploit national tragedies to tear us apart or to gain power or profit.

I mourn the country my children never knew.

Cynthia Tipton was having dinner with her family at Bandana's in the St. Louis area when she saw the look on her son's face. She knew what was coming.

Her 14-year-old daughter, Sophie, had been kidding around with her little brother, Noland. He got embarrassed by her mild teasing. He started screaming and crying. Loudly.

Noland, 10, has high-functioning autism.

His meltdown caught Tipton by surprise. She walked over to his chair, knelt down next to him, began rubbing his back and whispering in his ear: "You're being kind of loud. It's OK, buddy. Sophie was just teasing. Let's calm down. Let's be a little quieter. You're safe."

The screaming continued for a few minutes.

She felt self-conscious and could tell her father, who was dining with them, was embarrassed, too.

Then, it was like a switch flipped and her son calmed down. When the waitress walked over, her father was convinced another diner had complained and they were going to be banned from the restaurant.

That had happened once, when Noland was 4, and there had been a few times when Tipton had taken her son screaming and crying from a restaurant.

The waitress did, indeed, bring a message from another customer.

Another family had paid for their dinner. On the receipt, the strangers wrote, "Hi! We couldn't help but notice what a great mother you are and what a beautiful family you have. God bless."

Tipton, who recently opened an indoor gym for children on the autism spectrum and their families, was speechless. The family had already left, so she had no way to respond to such a gracious act of kindness.

"Being a parent is tough," she said. "Being an autism parent is really tough."

Strangers have no way of knowing that her child is not just being a brat. He has to work much harder than other children his age to control his emotions.

She came home Thursday night and posted the receipt and a note of thanks to the anonymous family on Facebook, hoping they may eventually see it. She wishes she could thank them.

"I am overwhelmed and humbled by your thoughtfulness," she wrote. "It was so unexpected, and yet it made such a huge difference to our family," Tipton said.

In an age when parents are often harshly judged by others, these strangers acted out of empathy.

Unlike the angry internet mobs quick to attack a child's mistakes, or to judge a parent for a family's tragedy, the interaction with those who have been in similar situations comes from a place of understanding.

Tipton, who gets teary-eyed talking about the diner's note, has been overwhelmed by people's reaction to her post.

"Just seeing how much it's uplifted other people ... it makes you feel good," she said. "Ultimately, I really, really hope that the family who did this for us sees this."

As the story spread of what happened in the restaurant, it prompted a heated debate among commenters about when a parent should take a child out of a restaurant. Parents of children on the spectrum tried to explain how some children respond differently to stimuli when upset. Tipton was clearly trying to calm her son.

Others made an argument that the other diners' experience should not have been negatively impacted, even if for a few minutes, by the outburst.

But the vast majority who responded to Tipton personally noted how much kinder the world would be if more people handled life the way the other family did.

Her father commented on Tipton's post: "The family that bought our dinner must have been angels from God. Regular people could not have looked at us with such compassion."

In fact, regular people can, and more of us should.