2,996: 9/11 Tribute -- 2009

We will not forget ....

"Voices From the Sky"

Flocks of paper flying
Faces bent from crying
Traces of a skyline
On a morning that will never die

Smoky silence burning
Broken sky returning
Echoes in a stairwell
On a morning that will never die

Missing voices
whisper through the broken sky
Live your life
and we will never die...

Lynn Catherine Goodchild
May 27, 1976 - September 11, 2001

On 9-11-01, at 8:14 am, Lynn Goodchild and her fiancé Shawn Nassaney departed Boston's Logan International Airport on United Airlines Flight 175.

Described by family and friends as "inseparable travelers," Lynn and Shawn were avid sportsmen who shared a contagious zest for life, a devotion to families and friends, a love of adventure and travel.

Known for whirl-wind vacations around the world, Lynn and her best friend were indeed inseparable travelers. On this fateful day, they were en route to a four-day vacation in Maui, Hawaii.

At 9:02:54 am, Flight 175 impacted the south side of the South Tower between the 78^th and 84^th floors.

A native of Attleboro, MA, Lynn worked as a program administrator with Putnam Investments. Testimonies by co-workers and friends refer to her compassion, her grace and dignity, her professional competence, her warm and gentle spirit, her beauty, her infectious smile, her love for Shawn ....

Actually -- it is difficult to garner a complete tribute to Lynn or Shawn without thinking of them as consummate soul-mates, kindred spirits .....

One of the qualities that made Shawn M. Nassaney and Lynn Catherine Goodchild such an enviable couple was that they shared the same attitude toward their young adulthood, one that could be summed up as: work hard, play hard.

It was like that at Bryant College, where they met. Both stood out in sports, Lynn in karate and Shawn in cross country, and both found lots of time to party, too. By 25, they were excelling in the business world.

They loved to travel. In 2000, they'd lived briefly in Sydney .... In 2001 they pulled off several whirlwind trips, usually just three or four days long - Florida in January for a college friend's party, London for Valentine's Day, Disney World in July for Shawn's 25th birthday.

On this trip, on Sept. 11, they were supposed to catch a connection in Los Angeles from United 175 to a flight bound for Maui, Hawaii. It was going to be their last splurge for a while, as they had decided it was time to save money for graduate school and for marriage.

They were always cramming in every last bit of fun.

''It was almost as if he had a feeling that he wasn't going to be here long,'' said Shawn's mother, Margaret Nassaney.

Shawn's older brother, Ryan, remembers the end of a trip to New York, when they had only 45 minutes left before their bus was leaving. Ryan wanted to go to the bus stop and wait, but Shawn and Lynn insisted on a few spins around the ice skating rink at Rockefeller Center. Ryan whined that it freezing cold and that the line would be endless. Lynn and Shawn dragged him anyway. ''The line was too long and it was freezing cold, but we had the best time in the world,'' Ryan recalls. -- Boston.com