Never Forget.

In the days and weeks leading up to today, there has been more than one occasion where I have sat by myself and cried. It's been ten years. I was not directly connected to anyone who lost their lives on that day. But as those who were touched by 9/11 share their stories and remember their loved ones, I wonder if by listening (and inevitably crying), I can shoulder a small piece of the raw emotion they felt on that day and through the past decade—or perhaps I can simply carry a small (but not insignificant) piece of their stories into the decades to come.

I was listening to an interview with the founder of Storycorps the other day (we all know my obsession), who summed it up pretty well. He said, "The enormity of what happened on September 11th is very difficult to conceive. And the only way we can understand the loss is to break it down into the individual stories. Through each of the stories, the people who we lost that day will live on."

In the spirit of remembering:

We Remember: StoryCorps Stories from 9/11

"Welles was a young man who loved everybody...even though these were people he'd never met...that he rescued and saved and led to safety down those stairs, for him it was just totally natural. He knew what he had to do. And he did his duty"—Jefferson and Alison Crowther.

"I look at the picture, and then I look in the mirror. It's like looking in his eyes."

 “I called his name into the phone over and over...”  Beverly Eckert remembers her husband, Sean Rooney, who died in the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. 

Father Mychal Judge, the first body released from Ground Zero

"And so, this morning we come to bury Mike Judge’s body but not his spirit. We come to bury his mind but not his dreams. We come to bury his voice but not his message. We come to bury his hands but not his good works. We come to bury his heart but not his love.

Never his love."
- Eulogy of Father Mycheal Judge