For my generation, today’s date will live in infamy. It will simply never again be another day. 9/11 will always make me shiver, and I will always have second thoughts about traveling or partying today.
As I do every year, I took my Portraits 9/11/01 off the shelf and opened it at random to read some of the obituaries the New York Times collected so admirably of those who died on 9/11. Monuments are great markers of tragedy, but only obituaries can give us a tiny glimpse of the lives that were lost. Here are just the headlines:
Faina Rapoport – A Grateful Refugee (45 years old)
Amenia Rasool – Dining as a Twosome (33)
R. Mark Rasweilen – Father, Son and Canoe (53 – The floor plan shows that Mr. Rasweiler sat exactly where the first plane hit.)
David A. Rathkey – The Proof Is in the Ducks (47)
William Raub – The Creator of Surprises (38)
Alexey Razuvaev – Laughing over Broken Glass (40)
Gregory Reda – Ordre et Beaute (33)
Michele Reed – Weekends at the Farm
May their memory be for a blessing.
I found myself watching the firefighter documentary 9/11, with the filmmakers who spent time in a firehouse close to the towers that summer, and on the day in question were in the middle of it all.
William, that strikes me as an excellent tribute!