A cascade of memorial events around the globe marked a moment whose echoes still resound from New York to Afghanistan, and everywhere in between - a moment that even a year later left many transfixed by the horror, burdened by sadness, plagued by fears.
"A day of tears," said President Bush, "and a day of prayer, and a day of national resolve. It also needs to be a day in which we confirm the values which make us unique and great."
It was a day, too, of jitters and heightened security. Officials issued a "code orange" alert and warned that terrorists who struck last Sept. 11 might strike again.
The anniversary of the attacks that leveled the World Trade Center, cratered the Pentagon and brought death to the Pennsylvania countryside began far away from those places, in New Zealand, with the first line of the Requiem Mozart finished in his dying days.
"Requiem aeternam dona ets, Domine, et lux perpetua luceat ets," sang the Orlando Singers Chamber Choir at St. Luke's Presbyterian Church in Rumuera: "Grant them eternal rest, O Lord, and may perpetual light shine on them."
Choirs in 20 time zones around the world were to sing those words, each of them beginning at 8:46 a.m., local time - the instant when American Airlines Flight 11, its controls taken by murderers, sliced through a crystalline blue sky to demolish the Trade Center's north tower.
In the days that followed, New Yorkers became accustomed to the wail of bagpipes at hundreds of funerals for firefighters and police. Early Wednesday, bagpipers and drummers assembled for a relay - from the five boroughs, two at a time, to the World Trade Center.
Later in the day, there would be a moments of silence there - at 8:46, and at 10:28 a.m., when the second tower fell. In New York and in Washington, there would be readings of the rolls of the dead, 3,025 in all. President Bush planned stops in Washington, Pennsylvania and New York, finishing the day with a 9 p.m. speech to the nation from Ellis Island.
But while the focus is on the places that suffered the most, ceremonies marking Sept. 11 - prayer, the tolling of bells, candlelight vigils, releases of doves and balloons, riderless horses, flags at half-staff, moments of silence and others of music - were everywhere.
There were homier demonstrations, as well. In Montgomery, Ala., at E.D. Nixon Elementary School, sixth graders and their teachers baked cookies to bring to their local firefighters. It was their idea, said principal Terese Goodson: "They just wanted to do something."
And yes, Goodson replied to their pleading, they could add a touch of red to their white-blue-and-khaki uniforms on Sept. 11.
Fifteen percent of American businesses planned to give their employees red-white-and-blue ribbons or pins for the day, according to a survey by the Society for Human Resource Management; about a third said they would observe a moment of silence on Wednesday. Just 4 percent said they would give their workers the day off with pay.
The stock exchanges delayed their openings until after 11 a.m. Telemarketers hung up their phones. Said Perry Young, head of a calling center in Omaha: "If received a call at home on that day from somebody trying to sell me something, I would be personally offended." As they did a year ago, television networks struck everything else from their schedules.
Some airlines - still struggling to regain passenger traffic they lost a year ago - scaled back their schedules, as travelers avoided the skies on this day.
A year ago, passengers and crew members on United Flight 93 fought desperately with the hijackers who had commandeered their plane. All 40 died, but the plane never reached its target - the Capitol? the White House? - and their heroism became legend.
On Tuesday, 500 of their friends and relatives went to the spot in Shanksville, Pa., where their lives ended. Clutching flowers and flags, they walked the field where the plane crashed.
But other survivors kept their distance from an anniversary of heartache.
Barbara Minervino of Middletown, N.J., planned to attend a private Mass along with others from that town, which lost dozens of its people at the World Trade Center. Louis Minervino was at his 98th floor office in Tower One when the first jet hit.
But she had no intention of going to lower Manhattan on Wednesday. She would do the laundry, go to the beach with her two daughters, make dinner - her husband's favorite, lasagna. She wanted to honor his life, not his death.
"We are in our new normalcy," she said. "It's not the normalcy we had before. We're without our loved ones. It certainly will never be the normalcy we had on Sept. 10."
(China Daily September 11, 2002)
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