While we are pacing politically over Syria, we recall the terror on our own soil 12 years ago. Threats, evil and grief linger. On this anniversary, we do well to pause, to hold in our hearts the struggle and pain still felt among survivors and heroes of that terrible day. 

In the weeks after the 9/11 attacks, The Port of Seattle Police Department sold hats to raise money for the Port Authority Police Department Benevolent Fund in New York/New Jersey. That department lost 37 officers in the attacks.  Each hat had the name of one officer who died Sept. 11. At the time, my husband was part of the POSPD canine unit; he bought a hat with the name Sirius on it. Sirius was the PAPD police dog killed at the World Trade Center. My husband also bought a hat for me with the name Paul Jurgens on it. Paul's children are now grown - young adults I have never met, but I wear a hat with their father's name on it. The hat has become a sacred object of remembrance of one man's heroic gesture:  saving others' lives as he sacrificed his own.

This week, we remember those who died…and their loved ones who remain. May somehow our world find its way to peace.

(S-R archive photo: A flag placed in a name at the 9/11 memorial at Ground Zero.)

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