Real Talk!

Six years ago, this morning, Robert Grant Norton and his wife, Jacqueline, boarded a plane at Logan International Airport in Boston. They were traveling to California for their son’s wedding.

85 year-old Norton, of Lubec, Maine, was a retired engineer. For 44 years, he had served as a deacon in the Lubec Congregational Christian Church. It was a beautiful, sunny, Tuesday morning when the couple boarded American Airlines Flight 11.

That same morning, 2 year-old Christine Lee Hanson was boarding a United Airlines plane at Logan Airport. Little Christine was traveling with her mother, 35 year-old Kim Hanson and her father, 32 year-old Peter Hanson.

Peter Hanson and his family lived in Boston. Peter was the vice president of a software company, his wife a promising medical student. Christine was on her way to a Disneyland vacation in California.

The Norton’s plane crashed into the North Tower of World Trade Center in New York at about 8:46 that morning. The Hanson’s plane crashed into the South Tower of the World Trade Center in New York at about 9:03 a.m. that day.

Somewhere, there are people who planned this mass execution. I can’t begin to express what I think of them.

I choose to think that there were more heroes than villains that day, although there were more victims than survivors. A series of events on September 11, 2001 took thousands of lives and scarred millions- some in ways we have yet to discover.

I know that out there, it’s far more personal that this. In some 90 countries, there are those who loved and cherished a life now lost. I do not know any of them as individuals and yet, I want to honour them. I want to tell the world that I know these lives and their passings had significance. I want to comfort the families, friends and colleagues.

Oh, how I share in this collosal, collective ache that torments and resonates with each syllable connected...

Nine eleven, Nine eleven, Nine Eleven.

Rest in peace.

http://www.september11victims.com/september11victims/victims_list.htm

http://www.scribd.com/doc/275969/911-A-Statisticians-Lament