The Doggy Diaries... gone to the dogs!

In Memory of Annette Andrea Dataram

Today marks the 5th anniversary of the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. To commemorate today, I signed up to participate in the 2,996 Project back in July.

I was randomly assigned Ms. Annette Andrea Dataram as my victim to honor and memorialize. It's been a very strange feeling that I don't think I felt even that fateful day. Fortunately for me, I did not know anyone personally affected by those horrible attacks. Unfortunately for me, because I didn't know anyone personally affected, I did not have the same level of emotion and appreciation for the losses we suffered as would someone who was directly affected by the attacks. Reading up on Annette has brought back the memories of that day and has added some genuine emotion to it. To think that this lively, smiling, beautiful person was with us on the sun-filled morning of September 11, 2001, and a few hours later she was not, has had a profound effect on me. The finality of what happened is really starting to sink in, and the appreciation I am gaining for our country's loss has made me thankful that I signed up to join the 2,996 Project.

Unlike other victims that day, it was not easy finding information about Annette. What I did find, however, has quite surprisingly led me to imagine what this young lady's life must have been like.

Annette, also known as Priya, was a young woman, only 25, and had her whole life ahead of her to live. A most poignant and bittersweet aspect of her life was that she was engaged to be married in 2002, according to her mother, Chandra Dataram. Imagine the children and grandchildren she might have had. The family memories she would have created with her new husband. The meals they would have shared together that began as a recipe Annette would perhaps decide to try after watching one of her favorite cooking shows. Food was her passion and no doubt would have become a part of her married life.

Annette was the eldest of five children -- three brothers and two sisters -- and was born in Guyana. After her family emigrated from Guyana to New York in 1992, they finally settled in Queens. Annette worked in the accounting department of Windows on the World, a famed restaurant located in Tower 1 of the World Trade Center. She had attended Wales Secondary School in Guyana and was majoring in accounting at Borough of Manhattan Community College in New York to further her career in accounting. Her memorial quilt square shows her connection to both the U.S. and her native Guayana.

The human toll of September 11, 2001, while certainly tragic, is almost too big to fully comprehend on a larger level. When thought of on an individual basis, and learning a little about the lives of those who perished, the concept of the sheer magnitude really sinks in. If the loss of even one person touches me this much, then the loss of two, three or 2,996 means that much more.