It was a beautiful evening with the sun beginning to set as people arrived.
The sun was reflected on the Wall.
The services began with a reading from the Memorial Story Wall.
TWA Flt 800 International Memorial
Story Wall, Part 1.
On the evening of July 17, 1996 as the setting summer sun began to silhouette the Manhattan skyline, Trans World Airlines Flight 800 departed from JFK International Airport on a non-stop flight to Paris, France. Twelve minutes into the flight, at 8:31 pm, as the Boeing 747 jumbo jetliner soared easily past the south shore beaches of Long Island, at 400 miles per hour, a catastrophic tragedy overtook the 230 passengers and crew.
As the plane climbed past an altitude of 13,000 feet, a fatal explosion of controversial origin occurred in the vicinity of the center fuel tank, rupturing the fuselage and setting the plane afire. For brief moments the doomed airliner continued in flight into the now darkening eastern sky. Then, in what onlookers would describe as a sudden fireball, the shining craft suffered a final explosion, shattering into a rain of flames, and falling into the sea below.
THERE WERE NO SURVIVORS.
There followed the reading of the names of those lost by Family members and by TWA Friends.
A minute of silence followed as the sun set deeper in the Western sky.
Then the following poem was read.
LOVE NEVER DIES
By Canon Henry Scott-Holland
Death is nothing.
I have only passed into the next room.
I am me, You are you.
What we were for each other, we are always.
Call me by the name you have always used.
Speak to me as you have always done.
Change not you tone.
Be not solemn or sad in manner.
Laugh at the things we laughed at together.
Pray, smile, think of me, pray for me.
Let my name be spoken at home as it has always been
Without emphasis of any kind or any trace of darkness.
Life means what it has always meant.
It is what it has always been.
The thread has not been cut.
Why would I be out of your thoughts because I am out of sight?
I wait for you.
I am not far away.
Just on the other side of the road.
You see all is well.
The Moon came up over the ocean crash site and the skies darkened.
-Submitted by John & Eleanor Seaman
