All Lost Some. Some Lost All.

Twenty three names.

Those are the words that are engraved on the plaque outside of my former high school in remembrance of the alumni that died on September 11, 2001.

Twenty three names.

Among them I see four of them were firefighters, eleven of them worked for Cantor Fitzgerald and the remainder worked in other various brokerage or financial firms inside the World Trade Centers.

Twenty three names.

I know that doesn’t sound like a lot in comparison to the almost three thousand people who woke up that morning and went about their routine. After all, it was business a usual.

Twenty three names.

I was just over at Wikipedia and I read that there are estimates that over 17,000 civilians were in the buildings when the first plane hit. I wonder if the other 14,000 or so consider themselves lucky or if they experienced any kind of survivor guilt?

Twenty three names.

As I scan the list I see most of the last names are either of Italian or Irish descent.

Twenty three names.

That’s about right since it represents a snapshot of the neighborhood I grew up in in Brooklyn.

Twenty three names.

I see today the average student enrollment is about 1,475 students or about 370 students per grade. Somehow, when I graduated it seemed so much smaller.

Twenty three names.

Yet, I recognize only two of them. That doesn’t make the rest of them strangers though.

Twenty three names.

I wonder how many other names from my high school made it out of the buildings?

Twenty three names.

I wonder what their final thoughts were and how their families coped as they watched the events unfold?

Twenty three names.

I wonder what they do every year when this date rolls around?

Twenty three names.

I wonder if any other names should be added to the list as a result of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan?

Twenty three names.

Some fuzzy math on my part puts the youngest name at twenty three years old. I hope that’s not some odd kind of coincidence.

Twenty three names.

That same fuzzy math puts the oldest one at about fifty.

Twenty three names

The average name was about thirty four and a half years old.

Twenty three names.

Back when I worked in New York City I was only four or five blocks from the World Trade Centers. My company had an office in the building. It was a great place for people watching and to grab breakfast or lunch.

Twenty three names.

I would’ve been forty two years old at the time.

Twenty three names.

They were just the ones that attended the same high school as I did. I tried to do some digging regarding my grammar school and my neighborhood in general.

Twenty three names.

I’m sure there’s more but I couldn’t find anything more to add to the list.

Twenty three names.

On the other hand, maybe that’s a good thing.

Twenty three names.

The plaque itself is made out of polished black granite and is described as a triptych. I had look that word up.

Twenty three names.

There’s a piece of structural steel from Ground Zero at its base. In addition, there’s one of those eternal flames that burns 24/7.

Twenty three names.

I don’t know why it took me so long to write about this. They, along with everybody else that day that suffered deserve better. May each and every one of them rest in peace.

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