The youngest victims

On yesterday's third anniversary of Sept. 11, 2001, thoughts centered on the nearly 3,000 people who died in the attacks on the World Trade Centers, the Pentagon and the crash of United Airlines Flight 93 in Somerset, Pa.
But The New York Times pointed out that there is another group of victims, numbering almost exactly the same as those who died. They are the 2,990 children who were less than 18 years old when their parents were taken from them in one vicious instant.
No escape
These children, the vast majority of whom live in or near New York City, have been denied the ability to grieve in the same way that other children do the loss of a parent. For these children, there are daily reminders in posters, bumper stickers and T-shirts of their loss. At any moment -- especially at this time of year -- they could walk past a television set and see an image that for the rest of the nation is an attack on America, but for them is the very public re-enactment of a very private moment -- the death of a parent.
It is difficult to imagine the strain this puts on a child attempting to come to grips with the greatest loss a child can suffer. But psychiatrists and psychologists, social workers, clinicians and university researchers are attempting to understand what the children are suffering and to offer help to them and their remaining parents.
Before this weekend of memorial observations is over, give a few thoughts and prayers to the most vulnerable victims of Sept. 11 -- the children.