Childhood airline trips were extra memorable for Laura Ogonowski — especially the journeys when her dad was flying the plane. She recalled how she “felt like royalty” when he’d walk over to their seats mid-flight to check on her, her two sisters and their mom.

“Other passengers are probably thinking, you know, ‘What? Why are those girls so special?’ ” she said. “And we knew why we were so special. …We were the captain’s daughters.”

Her father, John Ogonowski, was the captain piloting American Airlines Flight 11 on Sept.11, 2001.

John Ogonowski in his American Airlines uniform in the cockpit of a plane. (Courtesy of Laura Ogonowski)

Flight 11 took off from Logan Airport and was the first plane that crashed into the World Trade Center. For the Ogonowski family, it’s been a long 25 years since the terror attacks on New York City, the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, and Shanksville, Pennsylvania, that shook the nation. And, they’ve never run out of stories to tell about captain Ogonowski.

Laura Ogonowski said there’s “comfort in knowing that people have … not forgotten what happened to my father. They’ve not forgotten about the other lives that were lost that day.”

Laura Ogonowski, second from right, with her sisters, from left, Caroline Anderson and Mary Howarth, and her mother Margaret Hatch, right. (Courtesy of Laura Ogonowski)

The family remembers John Ogonowski in many ways. Their family farm still harvests plants from seeds he first sowed into the ground. Their local church runs an annual food drive in his memory. There’s a college scholarship in his name. But the pilot’s legacy most profoundly lives on through his three daughters.

“It’s really important to all of us that we keep his memory alive,” Laura Ogonowski said. “We talk about him all the time. He’s never far from our hearts, from our minds.”

The desire and responsibility to honor their loved ones’ legacies still resonates to this day for many of the family members of victims with Massachusetts ties.

Holly Little has felt that duty deeply. She lost her only brother, 34-year-old Todd Russell Hill, in the attacks. Hill traveled often and was staying at the Marriott World Trade Center on Sept. 11. The siblings grew up close in Framingham. Little said her brother was kind, giving and had an iconic smile.

“For the last 25 years, people are still adding comments to his online obituary,” she said. The messages often mentioned “him having just this infectious smile.”

Todd Russell Hill smiles for a photo. (Courtesy of Holly Little)

In the early years after his death, Little grieved mostly in private. But the recent death of her parents gave her a sense of urgency to tell her family’s story.

“I’m really the only one left of the four of us to continue to keep his story alive and his name alive,” she said. “So I want to do all that I can now in order to do that.”

She wrote a book about Hill called “9/11: Reflections of the last 25 years,” which published on this year’s anniversary. In it, she shared how faith and prayer helped her family members grieve.

“It’s taken me 25 years to find my voice, but now that I’ve found it, I do want to help educate,” she said.

Many small moments from the day still stick out to surviving family members. Sonia Tita Puopolo was a young adult when her mom, Sonia Mercedes Morales Puopolo, boarded Flight 11. She said she will never forget how her bedroom door suddenly slammed shut as her mom said goodbye that morning.

“The door, when it closed … it was almost like this gust of wind,” she said. “It was just an eerie feeling.”

The younger Puopolo said her mom was a giving person and philanthropist. She wrote a book called “Sonia’s Ring: 11 Ways to Heal Your Heart” to remember her mom and tell the story about how her wedding ring was later found at Ground Zero. She and her father now help others cope with grief and build self-care habits through their wellness businesses.

“My mom taught us the importance of making your impact and helping to make the world a better place,” she said. “And for us, this is our way of being of service and … transforming all that pain to purpose.”

Many family members of 9/11 victims said the commitment to keep a loved one’s memory alive at times feels heavy.

Claudia Jacobs lost her younger brother, Ariel Jacobs, and she said the pain of his loss surfaces anew, even now. Her brother was at a meeting inside the restaurant at the top of the North Tower when the planes struck.

“The grief was so tremendous,” she said. “It was really, really hard to accept. I mean, I still don’t accept it.

“It’s 25 years later. And I’m still wishing I could make it not happen, ’cause he had so much to live for.”

Ari Jacobs was days away from turning 30, and his wife was pregnant with their first child. The family had already held a birthday party for him. His sister recalled him talking in the driveway that day about his excitement for the baby.

“He was like, ‘Oh, maybe [the baby will] be born on my birthday,’ ” Claudia Jacobs said. “He would’ve been the best dad in the world.”

Ari Jacobs and his sister, Claudia, embrace at Ari’s wedding. (Courtesy of Claudia Jacobs)

His son, Gabriel, was born six days after the attack. Claudia Jacobs said her nephew has spoken to media outlets several times about 9/11 and the father he’d never met.

She said her family makes a point to talk about Ari Jacobs to his son. But it’s a difficult balance of sharing memories while not compounding his son’s pain.

“When he does something that’s like Ari, we say, ‘oh my God, that’s just like your father,’ ” she said. “And we tell him … what a generous, sweet person he is, and how Gabby is a lot like him. …  We try to do things that are honoring his dad and letting him know, like, how beloved he was without giving him an additional sack to carry around.”

This year, the Ogonowski family got another opportunity to help John Ogonowski’s legacy live on. Laura Ogonowski’s middle sister, Caroline, gave birth to a baby boy. He would have been the pilot’s first grandchild. She named him after her dad.

“He is 8 months old and has the same big, beautiful blue eyes that my dad had,” Laura Ogonowski said, “and when he looks up at me, I see my dad in his eyes.”