A full-length mirror, a colorful outfit. A dramatic toss of sunglasses, a dreamlike tour of dolls and various artifacts in a dimly lit home. And of course, a signature catchphrase: “Te amo. Namaste.” These are the eerie elements that have drawn millions of viewers to my great-aunt Ann Douglas’ TikTok videos, many of them wondering in the comments section whether there is something darker lurking under the surface of her daily rituals. There is — and it’s more emotional than they realize.
Exactly 25 years ago today, Ann, 82, lost her son, my cousin, Frederick “Freddy” John Cox Jr., during the September 11 terrorist attacks in New York City. Then 27, Freddy was among the many casualties when United Airlines Flight 175 struck the South Tower of the World Trade Center, where he worked on the 104th floor. Ann’s TikTok videos, while described as “creepy” and “Lynchian” by some viewers, are her way of honoring her late son’s memory and keeping his spirit alive. By her account, it’s working.
“I went onto TikTok [and] I did what was on my heart,” Ann explained over the phone as I visited her Bear Island estate on Lake Winnipesaukee in New Hampshire with her daughters, Susanne and Nancy, days before the tragedy’s milestone anniversary. “I decided to try it out. I didn’t do it for any reason or have any followers. … I was thinking of Freddy. I was focused on him, and everything that I did had a meaning.”
After joining the social media platform in 2020, Ann began posting more consistently in 2024 and was met with an overwhelming response from the internet. Her first viral video — her version of a ‘fit check — came in March of that year and has since garnered over 3.5 million views, prompting comments like, “I loved her in The Visit,” “Oh Ann this is bone chilling” and “Uncanny valley but real?” (Ann shows her good humor by “liking” these comments. “Some of the things they say are so funny. I laugh and laugh,” she told me, noting that she’s actually “never seen a horror movie” in her life.)
So began her routine of taking TikTok viewers into her morning rituals, which she commences as early as 3 a.m. each day.
“In the morning, I do my ablutions, I dress, I meditate and then I do what I call a fashion report,” she explained. “A few people looked, and I didn’t care. It didn’t matter to me who was looking. So it started that way, and then I began to create what came to my mind. But I didn’t say [any] words. I would just be inspired to walk around the house.”
She continued to post, building a loyal fan base who regularly share satirical quips and sincere adorations in the comments section. Many of Ann’s viewers love her catchphrase and the glamorous way she dons — and removes— sunglasses indoors but don’t realize the deeper symbolism at play.
“I wore a lot of dark glasses because it was hiding the eyes. I think you can see in the eyes a mother that lost a son. It’s all in the eyes,” she confessed. “So I wore dark glasses in the morning and all the time, even inside. The symbol is that I’m taking the glasses off. I’m getting down to business. I’m going to take action.”
As for her signature sign-off, “Te amo. Namaste”? Ann hopes it speaks a universal language — she takes the time to translate each comment from viewers all over the world, from Yucatán to Tehran — sending out love and bowing to the souls of all who watch her videos.
Ann’s viewership peaked with more than 27 million views on a birthday tribute to her late son shared on August 1, the day he would’ve turned 52. While she doesn’t usually speak in her videos — aside from her typical goodbye — Ann sang “Happy Heavenly Birthday” to a photograph of Freddy in the video, which has racked up more than 3 million “likes.” She sees this as an undeniable sign from beyond.
“Susanne and I requested that Freddy do something big on his birthday, and this couldn’t be bigger,” Ann told me. “I know that it’s energy from the other side, pushing it along.”
Though she gets “signs and energy” from Freddy every day, Susanne asked her late brother for an “in-your-face sign” on this particular birthday, exactly 25 years after they celebrated with him for the final time. “And then he goes and blows up her TikTok, and it’s like, ‘OK, I guess that’s big, we can’t deny that,’” she said.
My visit to Bear Island happened to coincide with the week of the 25th anniversary of terrorist attacks that took Freddy’s life. The lake air was charged with a mix of nostalgia, melancholy and joy, ripe for reminiscing. It was there, on Bear Island, that Freddy spent the last birthday of his life back in 2001.
“It was just the two of us on the screen porch,” Ann recalled of one poignant conversation she had with her late son that summer, just one month before my family was rocked by the events of September 11, 2001, along with the rest of the world. “He took my hand in his and he said, ‘Mom, you and I are so close, and I could not have made it in New York these last three years without you. If something happened to you, I could not make it. But you could do it. And I don’t know if I’m going to live to be an old man, but if I walk out that door and never breathe another breath, I will have had the greatest life.’”
This was my first visit to the family’s lakeside retreat, which Ann initially purchased with her ex-husband, my great-uncle Fred, when she was pregnant with Susanne over 50 years ago. The property’s significance, however, has been part of my family’s lore for as long as I can remember.
“No matter where we were in life, Bear Island represented freedom, contentment and to be able to experience life,” Nancy told me about the land, where she and her siblings spent every single summer. “There was a continuity [here], every year, no matter what was going on in the rest of your life, good or bad.”
Susanne feels similarly.
“It was a community, and it was love, and it was real, and it was unfiltered,” she told me. “This place is my spiritual foundation. … Freddy’s still here.”
Ann and her husband, Mike, have continued visiting the beloved island each summer, along with Nancy, Susanne and their own families, like they did with Freddy throughout his entire life. During his last visit to Bear, just one month before 9/11, Freddy had expressed his desire to renovate and expand their vacation home for future generations, and to build community on the island. His loved ones honor his memory by doing exactly that.
As I explored the island for the very first time at 25 years old, traces of the cousin I never got to know are everywhere, from his famous fishing hat and beloved hammock swaying in the breeze to the neighbors who remember a young Freddy offering to walk their dogs on early summer mornings. Soaking in what Ann calls “the healing water of Winnipesaukee,” I found myself reflecting on my own path living and working in New York City, just as my late cousin did before his life suddenly ended and our family was forever changed.
I wondered aloud how Ann could have endured the past 25 years after suffering the unimaginable loss of her son in such a catastrophic event, and done so with the grace and glamour for which thousands over the world have come to love in her TikToks.
“The first thing I thought of was, ‘How am I going to live all these days in my life without him?’” Ann told me. “And then I remembered, ‘No, I don’t have to think about that. I’m going to live one day at a time and make it count.’ So I zeroed in and said, ‘I can do anything a day at a time.’”
She recalled one of Freddy’s favorite phrases: “What you’re against weakens you. What you’re for empowers you.”
“So I went forward with that idea. I love teaching and working with children, and I was going to make the world better in any way that I could,” she told me. “I can remember crying by myself, so many tears in the beginning, just sobbing and crying. And then I thought, ‘If I have to cry every day for the rest of my life, it’s OK because I can do anything a day at a time.’ That’s how I deal with it.”
Apart from her social media videos, Ann founded Betta Place, Inc. or FreddyFrog.org, a nonprofit educational foundation offering meditation, communication and anti-bullying resources for students and educators alike in honor of the victims of 9/11 — and she urges school system administrators to download their free curriculums for students of all ages.
“I want to keep his spirit on the earth because Freddy lived every day like it was the last day of his life,” Ann told me. “He would leave his world behind, and he would enter into your world and be present, [and] that is magic.”
Kismet doesn’t feel like a word sufficient enough to describe the coalescence of forces that led to my powerful conversation with Ann and my cousins on the screened-in porch of their home as the sun set on Lake Winnipesaukee, 25 years after they sat in the same place with Freddy for what would be the final time.
While Ann’s mission to spread joy and ensure her son’s legacy lives on is nothing new, TikTok is surely the last place she expected to find her community. But she’s not taking it for granted.
“There’s a symbol to everything, but I’m not thinking of the meaning. It just comes to me, and so that when I do it, I want to honor Freddy,” she told me. “As long as I live, nobody is going to forget Freddy.”
To donate or learn more about Betta Place, Inc. or download the free curriculum, visit the organization’s website.
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