Hearts open in 9/11 ritual

NY Daily News ^ | September 12 2004 | MICHAEL SAUL and MAGGIE HABERMAN

[knighthawk]

With broken voices and shattered hearts, parents of 9/11 victims read the litany of the lost at the World Trade Center site yesterday to mark the third anniversary of the terror attacks. Parents and grandparents stood in pairs at podiums, reading the 2,749 names as a steady stream of relatives descended into The Pit at Ground Zero.

With strength and grace, nearly all blew kisses skyward and told their lost children in whispers and sobs how much they were loved, missed and remembered.

"Mom knows you're up there, hearing me somewhere," said Lillian Tetreault to her daughter, Renee Newell.

Another mother told her child about the grandchildren she's caring for. A father told his son about the infant nephew he'll never know.

Last year, children read the list, but this year Mayor Bloomberg chose parents and grandparents to lead the three-hour recitation.

"There is no name for a parent who loses a child, for there are no words to describe this pain," Bloomberg said at the ceremony's opening.

At the end, he said, "As a father, I know that their sadness can never be reckoned."

Victims of the nation's darkest day were honored in ceremonies across the country. There was a moment of silence at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia, near where one of the four hijacked planes hit the Pentagon.

President Bush and the First Lady observed a moment of silence on the White House lawn, and Bush gave a rare, live weekly radio address. Democratic presidential candidate, Sen. John Kerry, attended a memorial in Boston, where two of the planes originated. And 1,500 people carried American flags and roses at the Pennsylvania field where one of the doomed jets crashed.

From dawn till dusk, New York was studded with tributes to uniformed heroes, the victims from Windows on the World and those from Staten Island, ending with the Tribute in Light beams rising from lower Manhattan.

At Ground Zero, the sun tried to break through the clouds as the relatives, most carrying pictures and mementos of their loved ones, dropped brightly colored flowers into two reflecting pools symbolizing the twin towers' footprints.

But increasingly, construction equipment dominates The Pit. Officials have laid the cornerstone for the new Freedom Tower and opened the temporary PATH hub. Soon to come is five years' worth of construction on infrastructure and a permanent memorial.

The ceremony adhered to those of previous years, beginning with bagpipes and ending with taps, pausing for four moments of silence and including readings by Gov. Pataki, former Mayor Rudy Giuliani and New Jersey Gov. Jim McGreevey.

Pataki and Giuliani both vowed, "We will never forget."

But the constant noise of traffic on the adjacent West Side Highway was a reminder of how, for many in New York and the nation, the horrors of 9/11 have begun to slip into the past.

"For the people who have not been directly affected by it, it doesn't seem to be on their minds as much. It's faded quite a bit from people's consciousness," said Alyson Low, whose sister, Sara, died on one of the jetliners.

A single bell tone struck at 8:46 a.m., when the first hijacked plane screamed into the twin towers, followed by a moment of silence. Then, Mike Low, Sara Low's father, took the stage.

He recalled visiting the private "family room," some 20 stories above the site in a nearby office tower, filled with reminders of "the young, beautiful, talented lives that were lost, their promises unfulfilled ... their dreams burned away."

[knighthawk]

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