Last Words on September 11, 2001
Compiled by Sylvia Stocker
Seminarian at Andover Newton Theological School; Candidate for UU Ministry
Author's Note: The following reading was presented during the
Tenebrae (Good Friday) service at First Parish in Brookline, Massachusetts,
where I was Intern Minister at the time. The reading calls for six
speakers:
- Narrator
- Mother (Speaker One)
- Son (Speaker Two)
- Lauren Grandcolas (Speaker Three)
- Melissa Hughes (Speaker Four)
- Mark Bingham (Speaker Five)
If readers are in short supply, you can manage with just three:
the narrator; one speaker to read the women's lines; and one speaker
to read the men's lines. The final line of the reading invites participation
from the whole congregation, so make sure you include a note to that
effect in your order of worship.
Narrator: On September 11, 2001, people in the towers and people
in the planes telephoned their loved ones to impart one final message.
Tonight we remember their last words…
The last words of an unnamed 24-year-old son to his mother, and his
mother's response…
Son (Speaker One): Mom, the ceiling's falling down. I'm going
to die. I love you.
Mother (Speaker Two): Go and hold someone's hand. Be with someone.
I don't want you to die alone.
Narrator: The last words of Lauren Grandcolas, aboard Flight
93, to her husband…
Lauren Grandcolas (Speaker Three): We have been hijacked. They
are being kind. I love you.
Narrator: The last words of Melissa Hughes, trapped in the World
Trade Center, to her husband…
Melissa Hughes (Speaker Four): Sean, it's me. I just wanted
you to know I love you and I'm stuck in this building in New York. A
plane hit the building, or a bomb went off. We don't know, but there's
a lot of smoke and I just wanted you to know that I love you always.
Narrator: The last words of Mark Bingham, hero aboard Flight
93 to his mother…
Mark Bingham (Speaker Five): I want you to know I love you very
much and am calling from the plane. We've been taken over. There are
three men and they say they have a bomb. I don't know who they are.
I love you, I love you, I love you.
Narrator: The last words of countless men and women facing terrifying
and violent death . . .
Speaker One: I love you.
Speaker Two: I love you.
Speaker Three: I love you.
Narrator: And in the towers and on the Manhattan streets below,
hundreds rushed into peril to save lives and put out the flames.
Crushed in a mountain of debris, their last words remain mute. Tonight
we remember them with these words of Walt Whitman.
I am the mash'd fireman with breast-bone broken,
Tumbling walls buried me in their debris,
Heat and smoke I inspired, I heard the yelling shouts of my comrades,
I heard the distant click of their picks and shovels,
They have clear'd the beams away, they tenderly lift me forth.
Tonight we speak their last words for them . . . I love you.
Speaker Four: I love you.
Speaker Five: I love you.
Narrator: And let the people say:
Congregation: I love you.
