Trending
As the Williamsport Sun-Gazette's editorial page observed on the 20th anniversary of the terror attacks, when the National September 11 Memorial opened, its architect, Michael Arad, chose not to list the names of the victims in alphabetical order.
Instead, according to PBS.org, Arad requested input from the families and friends of victims to create a list that has the names "etched in permanent relationships to those with whom they lived, worked and died."
"They wanted to make a latticework of meaning underneath all those names," Jake Barton, memorial co-designer, told PBS. "You have families clustered together, best friends, even incredible stories of strangers who died on that day, all of which was identified through this process to create meaningful adjacency."
As we editorialized then, we can't lose sight of one fact. The 2,982 who died 22 years ago were people.
They deserve our somber reflection this weekend. They deserve our thoughts and our prayers as we have the privilege of spending time with our families and friends, as we participate in the 9-11 Ride or watch from the streets' sides.
With the anniversary on a Monday this year, we have opportunities Saturday and Sunday to find our own ways as individuals and as families to remember the sacrifices. Whether it be in community service, prayer and quiet reflection or some other way.
We then have the opportunity Monday to come together during the 9-11 Memorial Ride.
We appreciate the hard work and staggering amount of time that volunteers invest into this event's success, as we've documented in our reporting on its planning the past several weeks.
We hope this weekend, just as we hoped a year ago at this time, that we can all come together, to remember the lives lost, the grief of their families and the shock of our nation, each in our own way.