Project 2,996 was initiated by blogger D. Challenger Roe as a way to bring bloggers from around the world together to remember and pay tribute to the victims of Sept 11, 2001.
The point of the project is to CELEBRATE and REMEMBER the lives of those who were lost rather than focusing on the tragedy of that day.
This past summer my partner and I visited the 9/11 memorial in New York City and I was overcome with an incredibly powerful emotion. I walked around the beautiful structures, touching the names of so many strangers, thinking about all of the lives that were cut short, about the elements that each of those people used to bring to the world and to the lives of those they knew and loved.
We met a few people who were there to find the names of their known loved ones, and at times felt like odd spectators at the scene of a horrible highway accident -- curious and concerned even though we had no direct ties to the people whose lives were lost.
And then I found myself looking to see if I could find the names of those whose lives, as part of Project 2,996, I researched, in order to remember them. But I realized finding the engraved names didn't really mean anything -- instead, talking about them, which I did, helped honour their memory. As will, I hope, re-sharing their stories again this year.
Raymond Meisenheimer
Remembering Raymond Meisenheimer (Blog post from 2006)
Deora Francis Bodley
Remembering The Lives of Two Heros (Blog post from 2007)
David Reed Gamboa Bradhorst
Project 2996 - Sept 11, 2008 (Blog post from 2008)
Though I never knew them, I do often feel like they are long long friends, and so today I have been again thinking and reflecting on their lives.
Every year, on this anniversary -- and sometimes on the days in between -- I re-read the original posts, I think about the lives they lived before the tragedy and I send a silent thought that they are not forgotten.
