Our daughter should not be left in a landfill
Colleen was an employee of Cantor Fitzgerald, working on the 103rd floor.
Her partial remains were found six days later, on September 17, the date of what should have been her first wedding anniversary.
My wife, JoAnn, and I, continue to be filled with the anguish of her death, the manner in which she died and her dismemberment.
We're sure you will understand why our lives have not returned to "normal".
JoAnn and I have become advocates of a number of issues related to 9/11. The ashen remains of those who perished are now at the Fresh Kills landfill in Staten Island.
A city dump is not a proper burial place for those whom we honoured as heroes and heroines.
While the fires raged on through the following December, the remains of those lost were cremated by the intense heat and became one with the debris of the fallen towers, so much that the ashen remains cannot be separated.
How will history judge a society that thought so little of those lost as to leave them in a landfill?
The bereaved families must make an appointment with the Sanitation Department to visit the landfill to pay homage to their loved ones.
Many of those bereaved may not themselves survive to see this landfill become a place they can visit.
Their loss is made all the more unbearable by the horrific image of their loved ones' remains consigned to a landfill.
After more than 18 months, the families continue to wait in the hope of something being returned a wait that may never end.
Family members are left to speak in terms of body parts found, and not found, and what may never be found.
I hope that you can find the compassion to learn more about this subject, and perhaps deem it worthy of your support.
There is a website where you can learn about our campaign to have the remains returned from Fresh Kills to the World Trade Centre site: www.wtcfamiliesforproperburial.com.
And don't forget that more than a thousand of the victims had Irish roots or other connections.
Thomas J Meehan III,
JoAnn Meehan,
161, Pershing Avenue
Carteret,
New Jersey 07008, USA
