At 9/11 Ceremonies, Moments of Silence and Tears

Twenty years after the worst attack on American soil, the loss of nearly 3,000 people was remembered in events across the country.

The families, the politicians and ordinary Americans stood on Saturday in Lower Manhattan where, 20 years earlier, on a similarly crystal-clear morning, two massive towers soared above New York City. At 8:46 a.m., the exact time in 2001 when a hijacked jet crashed into the north tower and their lives and the world began to change in ways then inconceivable, they fell silent. For two decades, Americans have mourned a loss so deep it shook America to its core. But even as time has passed, and the attacks have moved from fresh memory into the chronicles of history, the people who gathered in New York and near Washington and Shanksville, Pa., said the wounds from 9/11 have remained fresh. “Twenty years feels like an eternity,” said Lisa Reina, her voice quavering as she held up a photo of her husband, Joseph Reina Jr., who was at work in the north tower of the World Trade Center when the first plane struck. “But yet it still feels like yesterday.”