From all the ink spilled over 9/11 one piece stands out in my memory: "Chic Bar, Yes, But Babies Clearly Make This Party" by Marc Santora (7 September 2002, in the New York Times). It's a brief item that recounts the gathering together of several dozen from among the 100+ women who were pregnant on September 11 and whose husbands were killed by that day's terrorist attacks.

The words are accompanied by a bittersweet-beautiful photo (by Monika Graff) of the mothers and their infants. It's a glimpse of the diversity, the deep loss, and the enduring love of families struck by sudden tragedy — a world almost perpendicular to that of war and hatred and destruction, the more common subjects of massive media coverage on this day.

Santora describes the meeting as "... part shower, part support group, and part celebration." He concludes:

Then Jeena Jacobs, the mother of Gabriel and the widow of Ariel, who was killed in the trade center, gave an emotional speech. She found the words for what many of the women said was difficult to express.

"Sometimes I get the impression that people think we are the sum total of our loss," Mrs. Jacobs said. But that is not true. "Above all, we are mothers."

(see also AmongTheMissing, FragileBeauty, InkBlots, Memorial Day, ...)

TopicSociety - 2002-09-11

(correlates: InBalance, CelebrationOfLife, MetaMan, ...)