9/11 one year later: victims and survivors grieve, remember and raise pointed questions

Ebony, Oct, 2002 by Marsha Gilbert, Kevin Chappell

"I'm trying to prepare for life after her death," Lyles says. "I never thought I would. I still cry a year later. I still think about our last conversation and the crackle in her voice."

ASIA COTTOM, 11 Remembered by Her Parents

IT'S been a year since Clifton and Michelle Cottom's 11-year-old daughter Asia died on a highjacked airplane that crashed into the Pentagon shortly after taking off from Dulles Airport just outside of Washington, D.C.

And while their tears are fewer and farther in-between, the pain is still as sharp as ever. "It depends on what day of the week it is," Clifton Cottom says. "You have good days and bad days. Not so much tears, just times where you just sit and think about her."

Their pain is comforted by the many stories friends, relatives and complete strangers have shared about their daughter. Most recall her bright smile, her politeness, her intelligence. Others remember her go-getter attitude and her limitless imagination. Her pastor, the Rev. Earl Ross, remembers how she would walk down the aisle as a member of the church's youth choir. "She had such confidence," he says. "Her smile lit up the room. She touched every one that she met."

It was those traits that earned her a trip of a lifetime when she was one of several students in the Washington, D.C.-area selected to fly to Los Angeles to take part in a geography ceremony. She never made it. Instead, her parents say, she was plucked from the Earth to serve as one of God's angels.

Michelle Cottom says she has come to realize that taking Asia was God's decision. "If nothing else, Asia made it in," she says. "I might not get there. But she made it in. Even if she had a choice to come back here with us, she wouldn't. Living life is all about making it in. That's where we are all trying to go."

While Clifton Cottom, who works at the school his daughter attended, returned after the crash ("Kids help me cope. They give me hugs. Tell me everything is going to be all right," he says. "I just need to be around the kids. They keep you happy."), his wife, a government employee, didn't go back to work for three months. "It took me that long to get my mind together," she says. "And still I'm not in doing the same duties as before. I'm in a less up-front position now."

One of the most touching moments the couple experienced during the past year was the day their church, Randall Memorial Baptist Church, engraved Asia's name on the side of the church van. "I stood there and looked at it, and it made me realize how many people Asia touched in her life," her father says.

While the family continues to get letters, boxes of stuffed animals, cards, flags, wreaths and monetary gifts, nothing has provided the family with as much comfort as their faith. It has been their faith that has helped them view their daughter's death as a temporary separation, and has helped them not harbor any anger toward the hijackers responsible for the terrorist act. "Anger is not going to bring my daughter back," Clifton Cottom says.