(First published on September 11, 2013)
Shortly after 9/11, when the magnitude of the loss our country had endured was still incomprehensible, I bought 9/11/01 Portraits: Collected Portraits of Grief from the New York Times. Every night I read about a few more people who are captured in short biographies on its pages.
I encourage you to look at the list of names, in addition to books such as the one I mentioned, you can find them here or here or here. It is a list that seems to go on and on forever, so that you want to scroll through it as quickly as possible to convince yourself that really is an end to the horror. Look at the faces of those who gave their lives saving others, remember those who decided to jump from the Twin Towers to their death, taking the power of choosing the way they would die away from the jihadists, and imagine what their last moments on earth were like. If you are able, muster up the courage to listen to some of the last recorded moments of our fellow human beings lives’ in the phone calls that are now available.
Every single person who was killed on 9/11 deserves to be remembered — even twelve years later. One aid to the remembrance and honoring our fellow citizens who died is the existence, all over our country and even beyond, of memorials to the victims of 9/11. In addition, the following is a list of tributes to just a few of the thousands who were killed, written for IRD’s website in the past. They were chosen at random, with the exception of Angie Houtz, a member of Church of the Apostles, Fairfax, VA, who died at the Pentagon. Please continue to pray for the families and friends of those who died on 9/11. For them in particular, life was forever changed in a day.
Gordon McCannel Aamoth, Jr. (Gordy) August 8, 1969 – September 11, 2001
Angela M. Houtz (Angie) September 6, 1974 – September 11, 2001
Mildred Rose Naiman (Millie) March 24, 1920 – September 11, 2001
Officer John Joseph Lennon (Jay) March 15, 1957 – September 11, 2001
Nobuhiro Hayatsu 1965 – September 11, 2001
Donald Freeman Greene May 21, 1949 – September 11, 2001
Vaswald George Hall 1951 – September 11, 2001
Comment by Dale Totten on July 10, 2018 at 1:03 pm
Where can I get the photo of the 343 as you display on top, with the stair rail?
I honor them each year with The Nashville Stair Climb, and I could use this in my fundraiser, and I just think it’s an awesome memorial pic……Thank You
Comment by Faith McDonnell on September 10, 2018 at 5:39 pm
Hi Dale: I took that photo at the Liberty Museum in Philadelphia. If you email me at IRD, fmcdonnell@theird.org, I will email you the original photos that I took. God bless you. Faith