Candlelight Vigil Held At Garden Of Reflection To Remember 9/11 Victims
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PHILADELPHIA (CBS) – A candlelight vigil brought many together Tuesday night at Pennsylvania's official memorial to the 9/11 attacks, the Garden of Reflection.
Eighteen people from Bucks County lost their lives on Sept. 11, nine from Lower Makefield.
In this garden, there are symbols of grief and tragedy, but also hope and peace. Two twin towering fountains have served as a place of reflection throughout the day.
Seventeen, it's not even a number, a solid increment like 15 or 20. It's somewhere in between, awkward even, but to a mom every year is hard without her son.
"I always reflect back, Josh was only 17 when he went to college and he stopped being my little boy, at least to him but not to me," said Judy Reiss.
Judy Reiss' son, Josh, was 23-years-old when he was killed on Sept. 11, 2001.
He was one of the 18 killed on that day from Bucks County alone.
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As it does each year, the 9/11 Garden of Reflection in Yardley welcomed hundreds on this anniversary.
It was dedicated by families of the 18 fallen in 2006.
"To be sure our loved ones were remembered even after we were gone, so our beautiful Garden of Reflection was born and nurtured," said Reiss.
It is the kind of place where moments that were stolen from some families are spoken of alongside the stolen moments of others.
"Had I not been interrupted by my daughter needing her dad to say goodnight, I would have been on that flight from Newark to San Francisco," one man described the tragic day.
Seventeen years for a community, a country, a mom.
"It's not 15, it's not an even number like 16 or 18, it's time and it's how time marches," said Reiss.
Something that was brought up Tuesday with it being the 17th anniversary is the growing number of Americans who were not yet born in 2001.
Those children are now 17, more of a reason according to organizers to continue annual events like this.
