People want answers.
They want to know how last week’s attack on the World Trade Center and Pentagon could have happened. They want to know what happens next and, most importantly, they want to know how we will get through it all.
Politicians will talk about and, ultimately, decide how we should respond. Rescue workers will continue their painful task. There will be candle light vigils, and prayer services and fund-raisers and a lot of "these colors don’t run" talk.
But for immediate answers to the biggest question, how to get through the grief and move on, we should look no further than our neighbors and friends and brothers and sisters who are missing or dead, to the kinds of lives they lived and the impact they have had on others.
We should remember people like Cranbury resident Todd Beamer, who died on United Airlines flight 93, which crashed near Pittsburgh; Joseph M. Giaccone of Monroe, a vice president with Cantor Fitzgerald who worked on the 103rd floor of Tower No. 1; James T. Samuel, formerly of Jamesburg, who worked in Tower 1 for Carr Futures; and Port Authority General Manager William F. Fallon Jr., a Rocky Hill resident whose mother, Margaret, lives in Rossmoor. All three have been missing since last week.
These men are among thousands who died or have been missing since last week. They had friends and loved ones and their last words, for most, were made via cell phones to their families moments before the end of their world.
Mr. Beamer should be considered a hero for his actions on the day of the terrorist attacks. On the morning of Sept. 11 he made a call to an operator. He told the operator the plane had been hijacked and shared the news that he and several passengers were going to try to overtake the hijackers. We’ll never know for sure what happened on that flight, but we do know that news of the suicide crashes made it to Mr. Beamer and the other passengers, who then forced the plane down, sacrificing their own lives to save hundreds of others.
As heroic as these actions were, they are only part of the legacy Mr. Beamer and the thousands of others lost in this tragedy will leave behind.
Mr. Beamer was a family man. He is survived by his wife of seven years, Lisa, and two sons, David Paul and Andrew Todd. A third child is due in January.
He was active in his church Princeton Alliance in Plainsboro and a youth-group counselor. He was an athlete. He enjoyed life. He should be remembered for this, as well.
Mr. Giaccone called his wife, Sondra, 48 minutes before a plane hit Tower No. 1. His last words to her were made when everyone expected the day to be as normal as any other. He is remembered as a loving husband and father to children, daughter Alex, 14, and son Max, 10, as a man happy with where his life had taken him, as a good friend, happy and generous.
Mr. Samuels lives in Hoboken, just a 10-minute trip to his office in Tower 1 on the 92nd floor. He graduated from Monroe Township High School. "Jimmy was a good kid. He was never in trouble. He enjoyed life," his father said.
Mr. Fallon is one of the few victims who have been confirmed dead. Since many of his co-workers survived, his friends and family suspect that, after leaving 1 World Trade Center, he went back to help others. That was the kind of person he was. He had called his wife, Brenda, minutes after the first plan hit the tower to tell her he was OK.
The Beamers, Giaccones, Samuels and Fallons have much in common with all of us. If the disaster teaches us anything it is that the things we do every day to improve the lives of families, our friends, our communities are too important to take for granted.

