Journeys of the Questress - WTC
Dust Thou Art and to Dust Thou Shalt Return
Home
The Way it Was - 1
The Way it Was - 2
Sept 19 - When Tomorrow Never Comes
Sept 27 - Oral Interpretation
Oct 5 - A Mile of Tears - Part 1
Oct 5 - A Mile of Tears - Part 2
Oct 5 - A Mile of Tears - Part 3
Oct 11 - Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow
Oct 28 - Each Day I Search the Rubble
Nov 12 - When Spires Fall
Nov 19 - 911 The Rape of America
Dec 14 - Just A Thought
Dec 18 - A Sense of Place
Feb 2 - Final Pass to the End Zone
March 3 - Sitting on the Edge
March 14- Do You Still Remember
March 20 - Virtual Walk-Through
March 25 - When Will It End - Part 1
March 25 - When Will It End - Part 2
April 1 - Towers of Light
May 14 - View From Above
May 30 - Tunnel At the End of the Light
May 31 - Seventeen Hundred
Aug 9 - From the Margins Erased
Aug 30 - The Train Doesn't Stop There Anymore
Sept 9 - Ceremonies of Light and Dark
Sept 10 - Just An Anniversary
Sept 12 - September Holds Great Promise
Literary Reflections
Rebirth and Resurrection
The Winter Garden Springs To Life
The Winter Garden Springs To Life - con't
Underpass to the Past
Rebuilding Ground Zero
Under Hallowed Ground
Borders
Yahrzeit
What Will Fill the Void?
I Submit a Design
Footprints in the Dust
My Memorial Design Submission
My Memorial Design - Drawings
New Path Train Station
Path Station Tour
May We Never Forget
That Which Surives
War Without End
4th Anniversary
Footprints in the Dust
Void
I Miss 9/11
Time Comes Between Us
A Thousand Cranes
Fear Factor
Love Letters On The Wall
Empty Chairs
Sitting on the Edge of Forever
Walking the Perimeter of Emptiness
A Counting of Days
For Friends Absent But Not Forgotten
Stigmata
The Memory Keeper's Promise
Unbreak My Heart
Standing On The Edge Of Forever
Both Sides Now
A Memory In Time
The Gravity of Loss
The Survivors Rise Up
Flowers Will Bloom
The Fire Within Us
The Sentinel
Stronger Than The Storm
Between the Candle and the Stars
Ghosts
A Journey Through Remembrance
Canticle of Remembrance
Beyond the Crucible of Chaos
Journey Through Remembrance project
What See We Now
Forever In Our Hearts
Keeping the Flame Alive
The Rebuilding of Ground Zero continues
Does Anyone Care Anymore?
Where Is Our Story Teller of Pain
At Memory's Edge
Dust Thou Art and to Dust Thou Shalt Return
7x7x70
Heroes Never Die
The Flame Inside Our Hearts
The Year of the Heroes of 9/11
Déjà Vu
Remembering 9/11 in the year of COVID-19
Coronavirus Decimates Ailing Sept. 11 Responders
Touching From a Distance
That Which Survives 20 years later
2021 - 20 years later
Memories of Terror Return
Putin's Name Covered Over On Teardrop Memorial
The 9/11 Tribute Museum Closes
When Memories Fade Away
St. Nicholas at Ground Z is rebuilt
The Blue Wall of the Unidentified Victims
When Time Calls Your Name
When Art Gets It All Wrong

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Dust Thou Art and to Dust Thou Shalt Return

17 years ago, 4 weeks after 9/11, I walked the perimeter of Ground Zero. I dubbed this “The Mile of Tears” (https://members.tripod.com/the_questress-ivil/wtcjournal/id5.html) . The images, the smells, and the dust, I shall never forget that walk. In the corner of a building’s entrance (all stores were shuttered during that time) I saw some dust piled into a crevice. Taking a plastic bag from my purse and carefully, tenderly, I scooped that dust into it. I felt that this was the last remains of the towers and might even contain human ash from when they burned.

 

That small bag of dust has been contained in a special box for all these years. Each 9/11 I place that small box in a prominent place in my house, along with a crucifix, a picture of the twin towers and candles. This is MY annual 9/11 memorial. This year it takes on a new meaning.

 

When the first responders ran to the WTC to rescue people they had no time to think about themselves. As we know many lost their lives in their acts of heroism during those ensuing hours. Later, hundreds of these first responders descended upon Ground Zero, to work on what was then known as “the Pile”, trying to locate anyone who might have been buried alive. Days, weeks, months passed that they worked down there, many without wearing any protective masks, inhaling the dark, gray, toxic dust. The same dust I now have in my little box.

 

Over the years that dust, lodged in their bodies, spawned cancers of all types. During these years they also had to fight for their rights for health insurance payouts, as one after another succumbed to the various diseases. Our heroes, those who died after that day in September, though not quite forgotten were never memorialized in either the WTC memorial or in the annual reading of names.

 

This year, that’s been rectified. The conceptual design for a new memorial at Ground Zero was unveiled Wednesday May 23, 2018 for the “Memorial Glade”. It will honor those first responders who labored for months on the toxic site and remember the neighborhood residents and workers also poisoned by the air.

 

Morgan Gstalter writes, “The 9/11 Memorial & Museum at the World Trade Center will be modified to honor rescue and recovery workers who have died from related illnesses. ‘The 9/11 Memorial & Museum at the World Trade Center is determined to build greater awareness about this unabating health crisis,’ Stewart and Greenwald wrote. Six large stone elements will be placed along a new pathway on the southwest side of the existing plaza.

‘The stones are worn and broken, but not beaten; they appear to jut up and out of the plaza as if violently displaced, and convey strength and resistance,’ according to Michael Arad.

Arad, along with Peter Walker, were the original designers of the 9/11 Memorial and also designed the addition.

The stones will mirror the path of the main ramp used by the rescue and recovery workers.

The 9/11 Victims Compensation Fund released new data earlier this month that found victims and first responders are reporting ‘increasing numbers and types of illnesses’ nearly two decades after the attacks.”

 

Morgan Gstalter  - 05/30/18 11:24 Am Edt “Jon Stewart announces new section of 9/11 memorial to honor first responders”

http://Thehill.Com/Homenews/News/389879-Jon-Stewart-Announces-9-11-Memorial-For-First-Responders-Who-Died-From

 

And the path will end near the Survivor Tree, the enduring symbol of the city’s resilience.