2001
“WE HAVE ENTERED THE THIRD MILLENNIUM
THROUGH A GATE OF FIRE”, 2001
—Kofi Annan in his Nobel Peace Prize lecture, 10 Dec 01
“If today-- after the horror of Sept. 11-- we see better and we see further we will realize that humanity is indivisible” every day in the Times the profiles of the dead— their normal lives, their hobbies, their children, their pregnant widows. As if obsessed we read and save, but why or when would we want to read these sad stories again? The woman on the phone when I am ordering the NYTimes delivered, says it too “It’s the first section I turn to it’s so sad but I have to read it Everyday.” Perhaps I am saving them for my grandchildren and their grandchildren To say anything that has not been said impossible; as impossible as the thought of not being. The names and the lives of the dead a daily liturgy a daily litany. Today, three months later a ceremony in the Rose Garden and in “A Nation Challenged” these names: Jeannine M. Laverde, 36 Debbie Maldonado, 47; Kevin Dowdell, 46; Charles Magee, 51; Tarel Coleman, 32; Daniel M. Coffey, 54, and his son Jason M. Coffey, 25; Michael A. Marti, 26; Philip M. Rosenzweig, 47; David Dimeglio, 22; Michael Baksh, 36; Joseph Marchbanks, Jr., 47; Paul K. Sloan, 26; Ann N. Nelson, 30; firefighters, bond traders, vice presidents, computer repairmen, insurance executives, new accounts manager, executive secretary, chief engineer, a collector of angels, a snow bunny, a car aficionado, an intense talker, a softball coach, a soccer coach, a very religious friend, an Abba lover, pilot-Asian-, Arab-, African-American, European-American, Latino, with these confirmed dead: Gies, Ronnie; Jacobson, Steven A.; Kersin, Ronald T.; Lynch, James; Martin, Peter; Zucker, Andrew Steven. “A new insecurity has entered every mind, regardless of wealth or status.” © Jane Piirto. All Rights Reserved.