In Support of Patrick Clark’s Mosaic

Dear Editor:

When the world changed forever on 9/11, our hearts and minds were forever altered also. Broken were all the dreams, all the joys, all the hopes of those who perished. Shattered forever was the bright and beautiful light of so many lives.

Rockaway, especially, felt the awful darkness of the Angel of Death that day. Looking across Jamaica Bay at the magnificent Twin Towers jutting into the sky was as certain as the sun rising and setting. Suddenly, the sky was changed forever and so were our lives.

Rockaway’s Tribute Park was created to keep alive in our hearts the loss of 9/11. A quiet, open, sacred ground for all mourners to come and fill the heavens with their prayers and an eternal blanket of loving memories.

Now we are asked to come again as the Rockaway community to honor our fallen heroes. Now we are asked to restore what time and tide has altered in our garden of sorrow.  Let us preserve the beauty that was created from all the pain.  Let us bring back the glory of the magnificent installation first created by Patrick Clarke. Love does not alter. Our tribute shrine to our heroes should not alter either.

Casey Brouder