The dust has settled now and the debris has been cleared.
The screaming has run out of breath, the fires out of fuel, the eyes out of tears.
But it isn’t over.

Those killed in the competition of killing need a funeral.
They need to be given their names.
Their stories must be told.
Those killed in the contest of hate are less clearly remembered.
Their deaths and their dying are covered by dust and debris.
And other corpses are heaped on top of theirs, many other corpses.

My father died at 69 of cancer. He had just retired. Then cancer sneaked in and took him. I remember him.

Your father died in the World Trade Centre. He had just retired but worked as a consultant still. You mourn and remember him but he's also one of so many.

Her father died when a bomb accidently hit his house in a village near Kabul. Retirement was an unknown concept to him. She died with him. They are not mourned. No one took the trouble or had the time. And we do not remember them. At best they are a traceless part of a number in a statistic.

Faced with death on such a scale we might run out of breath and short of words.
But we must speak.
We should not be silent.
Silence has no place here.
There should be mourners.
There should be tears.
We must dig up their corpses.
Faces wiped away by flames must be remade, identified.
We must collect their bones and piece them together.
We should carefully scrape their flesh from the walls and remodel it over their skeletons.
Then we can talk about them.
Then we can bury them.
Then we can mention their names and remember their laughter, loves, stories, ambitions, dreams, and fears.

Forgive me, but this must be done.
Turn away if you want to but their stories must be told.
We must bear witness to their lives.

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Identification

Apologia