I would have given them an apple.
Not long after 9/11 a request from NY asked for ideas for a memorial. Here is mine.
In the center of the area where the towers fell I would like to have seen made an apple, a ten to fifteen foot tall clear solid glass apple.
In the center of this apple I would liked to have seen a red heart, no not one of those stylized ones we see on cards on Valentine's day, instead a glass human heart, double sized with veins and arteries fading as they reached out into the glass of the apple.
On the outside of this apple in an etched band, a band between knee to head high, I would like to have seen the full names of each victim. I would like to have seen those names not etched but embossed, standing out from the glass, clear and strong, easy to see, easy to touch and easy to see through to that heart in the center of that apple.
Constructed around and enclosing it, a building only slightly taller than our Apple. It would be wide enough to allow three or four to walk around the apple shoulder to shoulder-not very wide at all because any larger diminishes the private personal experience I would see for this memorial.
On the inner wall of this building, shelves, cubby-holes and cork boarding for personal items and photos left behind. These items to be cleaned off monthly, whisked away to a second building used as a museum-a bridge of sorts from the past to the future.
This building would be lit only from the Apple itself and black on the outside, circular in shape. White noise added to drown out any sounds from outside NY.
A technology we currently possess would light this building from the inside. During the day, daylight would be brought in via fiber-optics, lighting the apple from the inside out.
Thousands of these fiber optic cables, one for each victim would be positioned on the new structures which replaced the Twin Towers.
These would catch the suns light.
These fibre optic cables would channel the sun's beams of light through to the heart of that apple then burst forth to illuminate many hundreds of the names on the outside of that Apple.
Those beams of light would brighten or fade as the sun moved guaranteeing that at some point each name was lit at least once per day if not much more oftener. At night and on severely cloudy days this would be done by electronic means, ideally imitating the natural light.
This then would be my apple. A tribute saying that these people are forever remembered and be forever in the heart of the big apple that is New York.
This memorial would be a place for those who visit to have an up close and quietly personal experience.
I would add this one touch: upon request a photo of a selected name, lit up by natural light given to any who should ask, free of charge and paid for by WE THE PEOPLE'S tax dollars. That's not such a big thing to ask of us I think.
That is the apple I would have given them.