A day of reflection in Bucks County community hit hard on Sept. 11
Judi Reiss last spoke to her son on the night of Sept. 10, 2001.
Joshua Reiss, the youngest international bonds trader at Cantor Fitzgerald in New York’s World Trade Center, told his mother that he would see her in just a couple days. He planned to come home to Lower Makefield Township to celebrate his younger brother’s 16th birthday.
“His last words to me were, ‘You know I love you guys.’ And I laughed and said, ‘We love you, too.’ And he answered that he knew that,” said Judi Reiss.
Joshua Reiss died the next day on 9/11, making the Reiss’ one of nine Lower Makefield families to lose relatives on that dark day. The community was the most severely affected in Pennsylvania by the terrorist attacks. With 18 victims, Bucks County had the highest death toll of any county in the state.
Hundreds of people gathered Saturday morning to mark the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks and celebrate the lives of their lost loved ones. The commemoration took place at the Garden of Reflection, Pennsylvania’s official 9/11 memorial. A silver fire engine bell tolled for each of Pennsylvania’s 58 victims. It rang to mark the timeline of events as they happened that day, from when the World Trade Center’s north tower was struck at 8:47 a.m. to when it collapsed at 10:28 a.m.
With their heads bowed, the hushed crowd heard patriotic songs, speeches from choked-up community leaders, and the names of the Bucks County residents who died that day.
“It is the names that mean the most,” said the Rev. Doug Hoglund of Woodside Presbyterian Church in Yardley. “Behind each name is a flood of stories. We say the name and we tell the stories and they come pouring out: funny stories, moving stories, beautiful stories, amazing stories. Gathered together, the stories create a mosaic we call a life.”
Opened in 2006, the garden includes a pool with two fountains representing the World Trade Center towers and a railing with glass panels bearing the names of the Bucks County victims, and other panels bearing the names of victims from all the attacks. The land surrounding the garden has ripples to represent the shock waves 9/11 had across the world, including in places like Lower Makefield.
“It really shook our community,” said Reiss, an organizer for the event, as she hugged friends and family. She said after the attack, she made a decision to do what her son Joshua would want. “In his case that meant revenge,” she said. “But to me the best revenge is to live a good and purposeful life, and no terrorists can ever defeat that.”