I don’t know this woman. And, even though the likelihood that I would ever have met her is very small, I most certainly won’t. Because she is no longer living. She died on September 11th, 2001. She was, at least until the planes hit, working for AON Corp. on the 92nd floor of Tower 2.
A cursory google search for her name revealed list after list after list of the victims. It also revealed very little information about her other than who she worked for, what tower she was in, and that she lived in Franklin Square, NY. She was 32 when she died.
THIS SITE features a chance for people who knew the victims to post their memories of their loved ones who died. The following was posted about Jill:
Jill was an amazing person. At first sight, she was beautiful, but on top of that, she was so nice to everyone she met, fun loving, happy, smart, and full of life. She and I worked side-by-side for three years, and she became one of my best friends – truly a friend you can tell anything to. I miss her every single day. Jill, always looked her best, always smiled, always laughed, and lived more than most people do in a full life time.
*** Posted by Danielle Vaykovich on 2006-09-11 ***
Danielle makes Jill sound like someone I would really have liked. In fact, she and I are the same age. If she hadn’t gone to work that day, or if (wouldn’t it be nice) that diabolical plot had never been fully realized, she would be 37 years old. I don’t know if she was married or had children, or even wanted to. I don’t know anything about her other than what Danielle up there has said, and where she worked and how old she was and where she lived.
There were many people who died that day 5 years ago. And it is very difficult for me to memorialize someone I never knew. And I will resist veering off into some political tirade.
Rest in peace, Jill A. Metzler. And may those who loved you be comforted by their memories of a beautiful, intelligent woman.
FYI, I would have posted this two days ago, but I didn’t know I was supposed to! I signed up for 2,996 a while back, but never heard anything, so I figured my request had gotten lost in the shuffle or something. I checked in there today to read some of the tributes, and saw my name on the list of contributors. DOH! Sorry about that, Jill.
People die every day.
Well, see, that’s what I was going to start rambling about. There’s victims of all kinds of things, every day. There’s people in other countries who die from these kinds of attacks, and there’s no internet movement to memorialize them. People die from being hungry. They die from being old. They get hit by cars. They get murdered.
There’s a great majority of American citizens who are walking around like that annoying woman we all have in our lives-the one who has a few too many and starts whining about how she was wronged. Once. A long time ago. And she perpetually expects people to feel sorry for her, but they’re all tired of the schtick. Maybe I wasn’t the best person ever to write a memorial about some random stranger who died in the World Trade Center. I had to resist saying things like: I google her and didn’t find much. I guess that means she wasn’t doing a whole lot of internet porn under her real name!
Anyway.
I think your tribute was a very nice thing to do Viki. I just found out about the 2996 project myself on September 11 and have read a number of tributes during my bloggersphere travels the last few days…very touching.
Very nice tribute.
While people do die every day, they don’t die every day in terrorists attacks on the mainland of the United States, attacks hitting very symbols of the financial and military might of our country. Attacks specifically targeted to kill civilians.
As flippant as the first commenter is – these tributes aren’t about politics, but to remember the people an individuals who became statistics in the enormity of the attacks on our country.
You can be sure that Jill Metzer isn’t walking around whining about how she was wronged.
Precisely why I didn’t want to bring politics into the issue, Beth.
I have a bad feeling about the impending responses to your last line.
Things like this put the whole situation in perspective again. It’s not about that supposed war on terrorism. It’s about families being torn apart and innocent civilians being punished for things they had nothing to do with.
I have read beth’s comment a few times now, and I still have no idea what it means.
Thank you for honouring Jill.
I participated as well.