Sean Rooney's place on the National 9/11 Memorial

The National 9/11 Memorial and Museum recently unveiled its digital guide to the memorial. Those who lost a loved one can see where the name will be placed on the completed bronze plaques that will surround the sunken fountains at the center of the memorial. Beverly Eckert devoted a great deal of effort, along with others in the 9/11 community, to ensuring the memorial would properly preserve the place where so many perished on that day in September 2001.

The names of those who died are grouped according to their location at the time of the attacks. (Names of the victims of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing also will appear on the plaques.) The name of Beverly's husband, Sean Paul Rooney, will be on plaque S-57, right on the corner of the South Memorial Pool. His name is grouped with colleagues at Aon Corporation.

The memorial and museum is scheduled to open in time for the tenth anniversary of the attacks. Before the public is allowed in, family and friends will be able to trace the letters that spell out the names of those they lost. They will be able to leave flowers, photos, notes, personal mementos. The will be allowed to return to the last place on this sweet earth where thousands of Sean Rooneys were taken way.

And then the site will open to the world. It will be a place for all to touch names, to hear the sound of water falling into deep square footprints where the tall towers once stood. It will be a place to reflect, to remember.

Another 9/11 family member's take on the death of bin Laden

Beverly Eckert had fond memories of the time she spent working on 9/11 reform with other members of the Family Steering Committee. Kristen Breitweiser was an FSC colleague who joined Beverly during difficult lobbying battles in Washington, DC. She blogs at huffingtonpost.com, and here is her thoughtful reflection on last week's news from Abbottabad.

On the Media: StoryCorps' audio history of 9/11

On the Media: StoryCorps' audio history of 9/11

Beverly's voice on NPR's "Morning Edition"

9/11 is on the front pages once again, thanks to the killing of Osama bin Laden, and now the visit of President Obama to the 9/11 Memorial at Ground Zero today. National Public Radio's "Morning Edition" news program had a segment about Beverly Eckert. I have been hearing her voice a lot lately, as I've been transcribing many hours of interviews with her. And I had heard the recording they played on "Morning Edition" before. It is a segment of a longer recording Beverly had done for StoryCorps five years after 9/11. But the emotion in her voice and the poignancy of the story still has great power. I'll be blogging excerpts. Stay tuned.

Some of Beverly Eckert's thoughts on Osama bin Laden and the 9/11 terrorists

In the summer of 2005, Beverly embarked on a long sailing voyage on her tri-maran sailboat, Never Land, captained by Shawn Monks. In all, they traveled about 1,200 miles, from Florida to the Bahamas and back, and then up the Atlantic seaboard to Stamford. Along the way, Beverly kept friends and family informed of her progress, excitedly telling of whale-sightings, nautical mis-haps, and relaxing anchorages in the Caribbean sun.

On July 18^th, Beverly composed a description of the final leg of the journey. It was one of the few instances she mentioned Osama bin Laden.

As we entered NY Harbor, we passed the Statue of Liberty and then the section of Manhattan where the World Trade Center towers once stood. Sean is always with me in spirit, and he felt especially near at that moment. It's always painful to be at Ground Zero, but sailing past the location of the attacks while standing on the deck of my own boat, knowing that in contrast, bin Laden was hiding in a cave, made me feel something of a sense of triumph over terrorism.

In late 2008 and early 2009, Beverly and I worked intensively on recording her recollections about her work as a 9/11 activist. There were many hours of interviews, and thousands of pages of documents to go through. At one point I came across a series of unusual documents Beverly had produced on her computer: several pages containing the names of the 9/11 hijackers, repeated page after page. In an email, I had asked her what was going through her mind when she created this calligraphic composition. She responded in her typically thoughtful manner:

i honestly think that i wrote out their names as a way to exert control over their essence, their beings, as if i had captured them in some way. it seemed very ritualistic when i was doing it, very primitive. i could make them large and confrontational, and then shrink them to near insignificance. i could fill a page with them and then delete them. i could make them repeat themselves over and over, monotonously and endlessly, like an eternal punishment. i played with them, and then i put them in a photo frame, and locked them under glass where i could watch them but they couldn't get out.

Each one of us has had to find a way to cope with the aftermath of 9/11, and how to view the band of thugs who planned and carried out the attacks. The response of those who lost a loved one that day was shaped not only by the pain of grieving, but also by their own background and personalities. Some became motivated by hatred; others by love. Beverly saw this range of responses among the many family members with whom she worked and came in contact.

Beverly chose love. She focused on remembering the good times with Sean Rooney, the love they shared and the warm memories they made over many years. Beverly also devoted her energies to making a positive change in the world, helping others, promoting peace, finding solutions to the many failures that led to 9/11. By the force of her brave and generous heart, she in essence placed Osama bin Laden and his minions under glass, isolating them from her new life of service and remembrance, and condemning them to an eternity of insignificance and impotence.

We all have the power to deflect the emotional harm wished by others. Love and courage are invincible.

An autopsy of the president's failed effort to close Guantanamo

Beverly Eckert had more reason than most Americans to seek justice for those responsible for the 9/11 attacks. And she felt strongly that terrorism suspects should be tried on U.S. soil rather than being held indefinitely at Guantanamo or put before military tribunals. So she was a strong supporter of President Obama's call to close Guantanamo and try the suspects in U.S. courts. But his plans gradually unravelled, as shown in a lengthy analysis in the Washington Post. In short, the plan was not presented effectively to the public, and efforts to counteract strong congressional opposition failed because the White House did not have a strong, coherent, and convincing game plan. When Congress fought the closure, the White House blinked.

Beverly Eckert and her colleagues learned quickly how to win in Washington: know your subject; hone your message; build durable coalitions; and never ever back down.

Arnold Korotkin's 9/11 List-Serv: A one-man news service for the community

One of the most powerful tools wielded by Beverly Eckert and the other 9/11 activists was information. They learned early on that half the battle against entrenched interests like the Congress, the Pentagon, the airlines, and the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey was mastering all the facts.

Enter Arnold Korotkin, a sociology professor from Little Falls, New Jersey. A profile of Korotkin on baristanet.com sums up his work:

Korotkin’s work with the 9/11 community began when he was Director of Community Building for the United Way. His goal was to reach out to families that had lost loved ones as a result of the terrorist attack. “I quickly realized that many 9/11 families had ceased reading, listening to and/or reading the news,” explained Korotkin. “I began the 9/11 List-serv to provide family members access to news and relevant information about services and resources.”

Beverly and other 9/11 activists subscribed to the 9/11 List-Serv, and it provided a crucial source of articles and other information about issues they were working on. In addition, Korotkin distributed announcements, press releases and other materials produced by the family members and other 9/11 groups. It was a two-way channel of crucial 9/11 information.

I recently posted a request on the list serv for information about Beverly from people who knew her. Arnie was among those who wrote back, eager to express his admiration for Beverly, whom he first met when she testified before the 9/11 Commission at its raucous and controversial New York City hearing.

In the years that followed this first meeting, Beverly and I - in conversations and over coffee - would discuss myriad topics including where we were in the 60's, and to my surprise Beverly revealed that she made pottery in her "hippie days" - perhaps this was a way for her to express her warmth and compassion!

I was always impressed by Beverly's warmth, compassion and commitment. She was a friend who was taken from us too soon and her memory and dedication to 9/11 issues lives on!