On Sunday, Sept. 11, the village board marked its day of observance by attending the memorial service for Lieutenant Keith Fairben. His absence remains heart-wrenchingly palpable among the ranks he so devoutly served. But his comrades are sustained, as we are sustained, that he died as nobly as he lived - in the service of others.

As evening softly and somberly descended upon our quiet village, we attended a memorial service at the United Methodist Church, which was prayerfully led by Reverend Sikes. The ceremony was deeply felt and time stood still as our grief, awakened once more, seemed convulsive.

These events focus our thoughts on the tragedy of September 11 four years past, and how that day of national sorrow should be remembered now and evermore.

On that morning amid temperatures that never seemed fairer and skies never bluer our nation was bled by a series of premeditated attacks in New York City, Washington D.C. and one that ended in an open field in Pennsylvania.

How suddenly the world had changed. Moments before the first hijacked jetliner hit the North tower at 8:46 a.m. America seemed like a Gibraltar among the nations of the earth. Within 110 minutes, with the great towers in ruins, the Pentagon engulfed in flames, we knew our nation's soul had been seared by a grievous and terrible wound.

On what is now consecrated ground, the massive rubble of what was a great symbol of American capitalism lay the graveyard of the loved and lost: So many of our husbands and wives, our mothers and fathers, our sons and daughters, our neighbors and friends had perished that morning.

In the face of such calamity, there is, as always, the unanswered questions. How does one explain the magnitude of such senseless violence and suffering? Is the gift of free will so necessary to the divine plan that it must take its course even if it results in the cold-blooded murder of thousands of innocents? Is there some overarching meaning that can be discovered in the carnage and chaos of that day? Can a human being question Almighty God?

There are some things we mortals will never know; what was said more than 3,000 years ago to the lamentations of Job can be said now: "Where was thou when I laid the foundations of the world - as the heavens are above the earth My thoughts are above your thoughts."

But all is not lost - all can never be lost. If there is one redeeming ray of hope that can be salvaged from the wreckage and human cost of September 11, 2001 it is that a sorrow of Biblical proportions could not snuff out, flicker as it might, the light of our faith. Nobility mingled with unimaginable bereavement, for even the deep drifts of death and darkness of that day could not silence our community, our country's one common, unfaltering prayer: "In God we trust."

It is for us then to remember, remember the unsuspecting who merely went to work that morning and found themselves in the crosshairs of history. We pray for them and know that wherever they are God is near. For their loved ones whose wounds time has not healed we hope they will hear the words of the Psalmist: "The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and to those crushed in spirit, He saves."

We must remember our heroes. The debt we owe to the 443 firefighters, police officers, Port Authority Officers and emergency medical responders who died in the service on New York City on September 11, 2001 will never, can never be repaid.

That morning, at Ground Zero, with fires raging everywhere, the undaunted rescuers seemed like scattered leaves blowing in the wind of a burning forest. But still they came. Like angels racing through the whirlwind they rushed into the towering infernos, carrying people to safety, setting up triages to attend the wounded. Their courage was sublime, then sacred as duty transcended into sacrifice - and though we mourn their loss we do so with pride that it was for humanity they died.

We remember ourselves, the living, who must carry on in the shadow of that sacrifice. It is for us to bear witness, to give testimony by our actions that they have not died in vain. Every open heart, every extended hand to those in need of help, whether in our village, the Gulf States of the coast or halfway around the world is to lay another wreath upon their memory.

So let us resolve that their story never grows old, nor dwells on memory's distant shore, nor fade from the annals of time. For there can be no division between the spirit of the living and the lost: For death ends a life yes, but not a relationship, which struggles on in the survivor's mind to some resolution it might never find. We can sanctify that struggle by the good we do, so that on other Septembers and other succeeding anniversaries we shall find a measure of peace knowing we have become, because of them, a better people, a greater nation.

It is rather for us then to be ennobled by how they lived, served and died. Our deeds shall become our covenant with them, a sign that we have not broken faith with our dead - that through the struggle and strife of that terrible day, with all its undeserved suffering and lingering grief we can truly say that by the light of their example and the awful all-consuming grace of God, we have not only survived this great crucible of September 11, 2001, we have prevailed.