This web site is designed to be a place of support and recognition of all the abused and neglected children of the world and their supporters. I feel it is important for me to acknowledge the pain, present and future, forced upon the surviving children and their families of the devastation which took place on September 11, 2001. They will understand the concept of ForeverTears, as will many others of us.   Graphics by Silver Wings Design Therefore, this page is dedicated as a Memorial to all the victims and survivors of what must be one of the most heinous acts of violence and aggression ever witnessed by the world. Yes, there have been other human-made tragedies: The Holocaust, Hiroshima & Nagasaki, Pol Pot in Cambodia, and Chernobyl to name but a few. These too were globally experienced in horror, once the truths were exposed. I do not wish to diminish the import of those in any way, nor do I wish to sound indifferent. I just feel that this particular tragedy was much more disturbing. This calamity played out in our living rooms, as well as at the sights of the devastation and is forever embedded in our memories. This one happened in our collective conscious; it damaged each of our senses of stability and safety. We were not experiencing this through old time newsreels or learning of it in history class. This was not a tiny blurb in our newspapers, about some far away earthquake or political unrest where untold numbers of faceless people were dying. Our entire world wept together on that day and the tears will likely flow forever. I too sat in stunned disbelief, watching the coverage on CNN and MSNBC. I watched, in horror again and again, as those planes hit the beautiful Twin Towers of the World Trade Center. I felt my heart crush as I watched, live in my home, those magnificent towers crash to the ground and I felt the earth shake. I knew that life, as we had known it, had changed forever. A beautiful sunny day turned into a horrific nightmare and memory for generations to come. Yes, I too mourn the deaths and the manner of them. The very foundation of what we hold most dear was shaken. I do not mean the financial district and the military facility, for they are merely buildings and can be reconstructed. What I refer to is the freedom and security that we, in North America have enjoyed for many years. There was a sense of relative safety, just in knowing that "we" were geographically, far removed from much of the trouble in the rest of the world. We could choose whether or not to be involved, by watching coverage or by doing what we could to try to help affect change in the individual situations. What happened on September 11, 2001 was a cold-blooded and callous act of murder upon innocents and innocence. It was a savage act of terrorism, which targeted the entire world and was meant to show us that no one can be safe from the whims of a madman. We were left with no choice, but to relive those scenes in our minds repeatedly, like some kind of terror-porn. Children the world over, the innocence, were left with nightmares, unable to understand what had truly happened and why. There are untold numbers, children and adults alike, now suffering symptoms of PTSD due to what they witnessed. In my mind, this event was far more unsettling than even the threats we prepared for during the cold war, when children were taught to "duck and cover". Yes that threat was real, just not as undeniable or vivid as what we have now experienced. The destroyed office space will be and should be rebuilt, along with appropriate, lasting memorials to those whose lives were lost. The money required to do this, in my opinion, in the grand scheme of things has no more worth or merit than a single husk of wheat or grain of sand.   The thousands of lives, which were taken in these brutal and barbarous deeds had value beyond measure. Many of us mourn still, for the lost husbands, wives, children, mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters and friends. We grieve still, for the children born to grief-stricken mothers, who will grow up without the opportunity of knowing their fathers. We weep still for all the pulverized dreams and the seemingly bleak futures. What can be done to protect us from the same kind of victimization again? No one can be certain. I do feel strongly that this particular maniac and everyone associated with him and his "network", whether or not they were part of the attack, should be held responsible and brought to swift justice. There ought not to be a slow down in the hunt to find and eliminate all terrorist organizations. They, collectively, are a blight on humanity. Those who laughed and thought they had won some kind of strange victory in an imaginary war are not laughing still. They are spilling out rhetoric and ungodly messages as they hide in caves, in fear of retribution. If they were indeed doing God’s work, as they claim, then they would be fearless for He would be their protector. Instead, they travel in darkness, like the cowards they are and if we do not manage to root out these particular criminals, then ultimately they will answer to God for their misdeeds. We can take some comfort in that. We are ALL survivors of that horrific act. We had our innocence battered too. My hope is that we will band together and stand as one, in support of the families of the victims and also in support of each other. We can have the final say, if we stand united together in the fight against terrorism. We must do whatever we can to eliminate anarchy, in all its disguises, in order to help make this world a better and safer place for future generations and to restore our own sense of security. We will continue to mourn, shed ForeverTears, and we will never, ever forget the evil that visited us all on September 11, 2001, the day the entire world cried.  Authors: ForeverTears and Softlyrical