By Sharon Sheridan
With the words, “Peace, I remember you,” St. Peter’s Episcopal Church youth group members lit candles in paper-bag “luminaries” in front of the Morristown church on Monday night to commemorate the 11th anniversary of the Sept. 1, 2001, terrorist attacks on the World Trade Towers and Pentagon.
Of the young participants, only Katherine Hall-Lapinski, 15, had any memory of that day. Her mother, Fran Lapinski, was working in New York and supposed to be in one of the trade towers, “but there was a computer failure.”
“I remember my mom [Melissa Hall] crying tears of joy when she saw Fran come home,” she said.
“We were so lucky,” said the Rev. Hall, assistant rector and youth group leader at St. Peter’s. “[Fran] saw the first tower fall from her office. She commandeered a ferry in New York City. She was there with all these people. She said [to the ferry pilot], ‘Take these people across to Hoboken.’”
He initially deferred, then told everyone to come on board. Riding across the Hudson, “they watched the second tower come down.”
While they remain vivid memories for Hall, the events of 9/11 are history for the youth group members the way Pearl Harbor was for her generation. She told the youth that they were lighting the candles as a prayer for peace. While they can’t stop people from being violent, she said, “We can hope for peace.”
Youth group leader Joedian Dawkins, 26, was a freshman in high school the day the towers fell.
“They stopped our testing to announce it over our p.a. system,” she recalled. “I remember everybody crying and trying to call their parents to see if they were okay.”
She helped plan the luminaries because “it’s important,” she said. “It’s like you never really forget.”
By participating, the youth would be “showing that they care, too, showing people that they should remember.”
Josh Boccino, 16, said he saw the activity as showing respect for those who suffered losses on 9/11.
When she thinks about that day, said his 14-year-old sister Alaina, “it’s depressing. There’s some people that lost their parents.”
Although the youth group members can’t remember the events of 9/11, Hall said, “I know this means something to them. It means something to them to do this, and I’m proud of them.”
Said Alaina, “I just feel good about myself that I’m helping with this.”
