Good evening and welcome to this special concert.

Two years ago this morning four planes were hijacked. All four were crashed, three into buildings. Some 3,000 people lost their lives. These were not soldiers called up to fight. No war had been declared. These were ordinary men, women and children doing what they ordinarily did. Some were serving breakfast – or eating it – at the top of the World Trade Center. Some had just arrived for work in the financial district of lower Manhattan, or at the Pentagon. Some were on the planes. Some were firefighters.

Salmon Rushdie wrote we cannot really understand things that come in numbers beyond 1,001. Many of you saw, in the entrance-way to the hall as you came in, the 3,000 or so names of those who died. Certainly looking at them helps us understand the magnitude of that number. Or we could come up with little facts to help us grasp it: for example, if we flashed the names one at time up here on a screen during this concert – let’s say for about an hour – each one would only been seen for 1.2 seconds.

Ultimately, these techniques may help us understand the idea of 3,000, as a number, but not that each one of those 3,000 was a person with a life and a story as rich, and as ordinary, as our own. 3,000 humans is not the same as 3,000 widgets. In an attempt to humanize this list of names, to make it more than just a number, I will read one biography of one victim of the September 11, 2001 tragedy. All of those 3,000 names have a life behind them – here is just one of those.

This comes from the Star Ledger newspaper of New Jersey…

Many have noted how clear and blue the skies were on Sept. 11, but Virginia Jablonski and her husband Barry were among the first to notice.

A commuter to Manhattan from New Jersey, Mrs. Jablonski typically rose early to start her workday at the World Trade Center.

"I don't normally get up that early, but when I heard her alarm go off at 5 a.m., I decided to throw on a pair of pants and go outside," said Barry Jablonski, a retired Lucent engineer and an astronomy buff who occasionally tracks the flight pattern of the International Space Station.

Having heard that the Space Station would be visible over New Jersey that morning, Jablonski beckoned his wife just before she left for work. Standing in the driveway, the two watched the white light of the Space Station glide across the heavens.

"We stared at it until it went over the horizon and I remember she made a comment about how clear the sky was and how it felt like it was going to be a beautiful day," said Jablonski. "We just gazed at the stars for a minute, then I gave her a hug and kiss, said have a good day, and that was it."

The pre-dawn moment was the couple's last together. Mrs. Jablonski, 49, was an assistant vice president for Marsh & McLennan. She was working on the 94th floor of Tower One when a hijacked plane rammed into the building.

Jablonski described his wife of 21 years as a very dedicated and thoughtful person who had an infectious laugh. "She was a bubbly person who was always smiling," he said. "Most people wouldn’t know if she was angry." The Brooklyn native was a faithful daughter, who spent much of her time with her 89-year-old mother, Eleanora DeTullio, whom she had moved to an assisted-living home.

A highly organized person, Mrs. Jablonski had already begun buying Christmas gifts for her many nieces and nephews, her husband said.

"If we were going on a trip, I would pack the night before and she'd pack a month before," he said. "If she didn't get her Christmas shopping done by Thanksgiving she thought she was late."

Jablonski also described his wife as a hobbyist who loved traveling and trying different things. She also had two special cats, Bill and Fred, and decorated her home in cat motif.

In addition to her husband and mother, Mrs. Jablonski was survived by her brother, Anthony DeTullio, and his wife, Sheryl; father-in-law and mother-in-law Henry and Dorothy Jablonski of New York; brother-in-law Gregory Jablonski and wife Caroline of Southbury, Conn., sister-in-law Elaine Virga and husband Frank Virga of Wantagh, N.Y.; and a number of nieces, nephews, aunts, uncles and cousins.

At the time of her death, Virginia Jablonski lived in Matawan, New Jersey, the town I was born and raised in.

Before we begin with the concert, I would ask you all to join with me in a moment of silence as we remember the events of two years ago this morning and the people who lost their lives.

Thank you.