Laura Lee

It's been a sad week for me and my girlfriends. September 11th has always been difficult for us as it constantly reminds us of our dear friend Laura Lee Morabito. But this week we learned that they have identified several of her remains. I hadn't considered there would be any remains since she was on one of the planes (American Flight 11). But the thought of having something to bury has brought her family some peace and they will be holding a funeral service for her tomorrow. They had erected a tombstone in her memory in 2001, but now they will have something to place beneath it.

After absorbing the news, I had started to worry that they had just recently come across the remains. I was finding it disturbing to think she could've been in Ground Zero all of this time, but thankfully she was found in 2001. It wasn't until last week that they had identified her remains thru DNA testing. Apparently she was the 1,618th victim of the 2,750 to be identified. So that makes my heart ache for the rest of the families still waiting. And I also worry that her family will get calls in the future that more remains have been identified. It would be heart wrenching, in my opinion, to keep opening the grave.

One of the remains identified happened to be her left arm which still had her wedding band on. Her husband has been wearing it since it was returned to him, but tomorrow at the funeral he will be giving it to Laura's mother.

Unfortunately, we can't help but think and imagine what happened that day six years ago. So, I'll just say what I'm thankful for: I'm thankful that her wedding band has been found, I'm thankful that her family will now have peace with a proper burial, I'm glad her family is kind enough to keep her old girlfriends informed, I'm glad that there are scientists still working on identifying each and every person, and I'm glad there is technology available today to allow this to happen.