By: Todd Spangler
Associated Press
SHANKSVILLE, Pa. (AP) - Nicole Miller's mom did something to remember
the daughter she lost in the crash of Flight 93, a tiny act she couldn't see
herself taking even before Sept. 11th ..... She boarded a plane.
Putting aside nightmares of planes falling out of the sky which had plagued
her long before her 21-year-old daughter was killed, Cathy Stefani boarded
a jet in California and flew across country.
"I think she would want me to get over that fear," Stefani said.
In gestures big and small, the heroes of what has been called the first battle
in America's war against terrorism have been remembered by their families,
friends and people they never met. A foundation bearing Todd Beamer's
name wants to help kids deal with trauma and learn how to make choices.
Jeremy's Heroes - named for Jeremy Glick - is dedicated to helping children
build character through sports.
In phone calls from the plane, four passengers - Beamer, Glick, Mark Bingham
and Tom Burnett - said they and others had decided to fight the hijackers after
learning of the attacks on the World Trade Center that morning.
Since then, awards, Web sites and songs have remembered the seven crew
members and 33 passengers who died when the plane went down in a
Pennsylvania field.
But families and friends have also honored their loved ones in smaller, more
personal ways. A wife makes a dinner she has never made before and when
her children turn up their noses, asking what it is, she explains:
Their daddy loved Sloppy Joes.
Stefani hands out pins bearing her daughter's name and photo. A park bench
remembering Nicole has been placed in her father's hometown, and another
will be put not far from her mother's house, a spot for people to rest.
Some family members find themselves doing things they never would have
thought of before.
Back before Sept. 11, Deena Burnett didn't talk much when she went
to a dinner party with her husband. But at a dinner in California recently,
she spoke to 1,400 people. With everything that she's been through, it
seems silly getting nervous over talking to people.
"You can't seem to concentrate on anything other than your loss,"
she said. "The words just flowed. They come so easily."
For some, memorializing the heroes has meant taking on causes
the victims cared about, or defending the lives they lived.
Bingham's mother, Alice Hoglan, has been trying to psych herself up for
speaking engagements and pushing everything from aviation security to
better relations between Israel and the Arab world. And she wants to speak
for gay rights on behalf of her son, who was gay.
This even though the hurt has gotten worse as time goes on.
"I've been immobilized by grief. It gets tighter and tighter," said Hoglan,
who lives in the San Francisco area. "It's like pouring acid on glass.
It's slowly etching its way down."
At the Beamer foundation in New Jersey, CEO Doug MacMillan has talked
with athletes interested in helping the group develop retreats for at-risk kids
and children who are learning how to deal with trauma.
Beamer was a sports nut, always talking about "stepping up to the plate"
or "hitting the ball out of the park." Meeting people like those his buddy,
MacMillan, has met, would have been a dream come true. But it comes
with a bitter taste for MacMillan.
"The only reason I'm talking to these people is because my best friend died,"
he said.
Jeremy Glick's older sister, Jennifer, is president of the foundation named
after her brother - a group which has supplied sneakers to kids in Chicago
and paid for 20 children in Washington to attend a soccer camp.
The idea is to build character through sports.
Cathy Stefani is over her fear of flying. In April, she jetted across country,
retracing the steps her daughter took on a New York visit before she boarded
Flight 93 in Newark on Sept. 11. Then Stefani went to New Jersey, where the
Justice Department played a cockpit tape recovered from the crash and told
her that all the 40 passengers and crew were heroes.
"I feel I'm a stronger person that I was before," she said. "
But there is that emptiness."
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