The number has become fraught with meaning. For many, it is a statistic against which to measure a people's grief, a nation's response, a government's objectives.
Yet we dishonour the memory of the victims, and fail those left behind, if we reduce their lives to a number, a mere variable in political calculations.
We must name them all, to remind ourselves of the personal price paid by so many that day, and in the days afterward.
For as many as grieved their loss collectively, so many grieved personally for the loved ones and friends taken from them.
Orasri Liangthanasarn was one of those taken.
She had been working for two months at the famous Windows on the World restaurant on the 107th floor of WTC 1 as a banquet coordinator.
Orasri and her sister Passara had only been in America from Thailand for about three years; Orasri had just graduated from New York University's food and nutrition management master's program, and her sister was attending medical school.
Orasri was one of so many in New York who had come from overseas to achieve her part of the American dream.
We'll never know how much more of it she could have achieved.
For those who ask, "Why do we fight?", in her name, and the names of all those who perished that day, lies the answer.
Inspiration: Project 2,996
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