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A glass of red wine at the table
The firehouse every year
Kevin Dowdell, a lieutenant with FDNY Rescue Company 4 in Queens, was 46 when he died on 9/11. His son Patrick, a former Army captain, goes to the Rescue 4 firehouse every year with his mother and his brother. Apart from the time he was deployed, he has never missed one.
At the firehouse they hold a moment of silence for each event of the day: when the planes hit, when the towers fell, at the Pentagon, and at Shanksville. Patrick plays the bagpipes for each moment of silence.
Dinner and a glass of wine
In the evening everyone goes back to Patrick's house for dinner. A glass of red wine is poured and kept at the head of the table for Kevin. After dinner it is passed around, and each person shares a memory, or something from the year that they think he would have liked to be part of.
Patrick's kids never met Grandpa Kevin, but they talk about him as if they know him. Patrick, his brother, and their mother still talk about him that way.
Why do families set a place for the absent?
Rituals that keep a place for someone who is gone appear in many cultures. At the Passover seder, Jewish families pour a cup of wine for the prophet Elijah and leave it untouched for a guest who does not arrive. In Mexico, families build Day of the Dead altars with the favorite foods and drinks of relatives who have died. Military dinners in the United States include a missing man table, set with an empty chair, for service members who are missing or captured.
Why does the ceremony pause six times?
The annual reading of names at the memorial in New York observes six moments of silence, each tied to a point in the attacks. They mark the North Tower impact at 8:46 a.m., the South Tower impact at 9:03, and the Pentagon impact at 9:37. They also mark the South Tower collapse at 9:59, the crash of Flight 93 in Shanksville at 10:03, and the North Tower collapse at 10:28.
Why do bagpipes play at firefighter funerals?
Irish and Scottish immigrants made up a large share of American fire and police departments in the nineteenth century, and they brought their pipe music with them. Departments formed pipe and drum bands that played at funerals and memorial services. The tradition spread across the United States, and pipes became the sound most associated with the funeral of a firefighter or police officer. The FDNY's Emerald Society Pipes and Drums plays at many of its funerals.
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