15: 9/11: Families

From USA Today:

"1,113 families still have no real confirmation of 9/11 deaths"

For many, 9/11 is characterized by a televised reading of the names of the dead at Ground Zero. But for those looking for answers in what’s left of the World Trade Center rubble, the words on TV are empty promises in a tragedy still unfolding. Survivors struggle with broken lives and jobs lost due to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Others try to let go of anger: their loved ones ended up in a tumble of broken wreckage in a landfill on Staten Island, left to endure rain, snow and wind. Now the remains sit in a museum, in a private area open only to victims' family members, not far from where curious tourists buy trinkets at a souvenir shop. Staffers at the medical examiner’s office still work to identify remains that turned up as recently as 2013. Families of 1,113 of the 2,753 who died still have no biological confirmation of death, according to New York’s Office of the Chief Medical Examiner.  “Someone says to you, ‘Tough it up, kid. Move on. The person died 15 years ago,’“ says Arnold Korotkin, 71, a Montclair, N.J., sociologist and creator of a massive 9/11 listserv. “Forty to 50% of the families didn’t have any body parts returned to them. Only a small percentage had an entire body returned to them. Sometimes, it was just a wedding ring with a finger, or a jawbone with teeth.” “This isn’t over,” Korotkin adds. “The wound heals and every Sept. 11 the scab gets taken off for a moment.”  For Diane Horning of Scotch Plains, N.J., a big part of her struggle is letting go of anger. Horning’s son, Matthew, was a data management specialist who worked at Marsh & McLellan, a financial services firm on the 95th floor of the North Tower of the World Trade Center. The 26-year-old was smart, humble, personable and planned to propose to his girlfriend, according to published profiles on him. Like many of the nearly 3,000 who died when the World Trade Center collapsed, it is believed that the city carted off his remains to the now-closed Fresh Kills Landfill in Staten Island, “sitting on top of dirty diapers,” Diane Horning said. Horning led a now-defunct group called WTC Families for a Proper Burial and the members — loved ones of those who died — lobbied for a permanent resting place for the remains where they could honor their loved ones. The group hired engineers to come up with several proposed sites, but former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg would have none of it, Horning recounted. “He said, ‘I don’t think burial is important,’“ Horning recalled of a meeting between her group and the mayor. “He said, ‘I only visited my father’s grave once. I intend to give my body to science.’" Bloomberg’s media representative did not respond to a request for an interview. Diane Horning, like other loved ones of those who died, is incensed that remains have been taken to a permanent, private area within the National September 11 Memorial & Museum. Loved ones have been told they may remember the dead from a private reflection room closed to the public, but Horning and others are offended by the thought of loves ones' remains being part of a tourist attraction. “We have nothing to say about that stupid museum,” Horning said. “I understand people going to it. I don’t fault them. I will never set foot in it.”

^ It must be extremely difficult for the victims' families to "get over" the 9/11 attacks especially when they have no body to bury. It doesn't matter if it's been 1 year or 15 years the effects can still be very profound for the survivors and the families of the victims. Anyone who tells them to simply "get over it" has no heart and can never imagine what they are going through. ^

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2016/09/10/loved-ones-survivors-still-struggle-pain-sept-11/89359192/