Remembering 9/11

I was looking through the "Remembering 9/11" photos on nytimes.com and saw this photograph.

I sadly don't know much about the 9/11 Memorial.  But I can't help but think of the Vietnam War Memorial in Washington, DC.  The roll call of names.  The stark black stone.  The flowers. 

Maya Lin, in designing "The Wall," insisted on using a reflective black granite so that visitors, when looking at the names of fallen of soldiers, would also see their own reflections.  In some respects, it was a mirror into the other side - a place to remember the dead and to heal the living.  A symbolic graveyard of sorts. 

The 9/11 memorial.  It is more than a symbolic graveyard or an attempt to remember something that happened on the other side of the world.  The 9/11 memorial commemorates an event that physically burned US soil, killed thousands of civilians, and catalyzed a war we are still embroiled in today.  Remembering 9/11 ten years later.  I think the wound is still too deep to heal.  But I do believe that having a place for survivors and family to place flowers and shed tears - invaluable beyond words.