As a way to cope with my horror, overwhelming sadness and urge to "do something" after the tragedy of September 11, I performed a healing ritual. Starting September 18, every Tuesday, the anniversary of the attack, I bought a bunch of white roses.

While I peeled off 11 petals from 9 roses, I sang or hummed the
hymns, “Amazing Grace" and "Jerusalem.” Then I placed the petals between the pages of the New York city phone book to dry. I continued this each week for many months until I had accumulated enough petals for every victim of the World Trade Center attack. These were preserved, layered in paper towels, housed in shoe boxes, waiting to be made into a memorial.

Now, carefully and reverently coated with acrylic and stamped with numbers, the petals represent the unrecovered bodies of those lost.