On September 11, The Washington Post published a special section on the dedication of the memorial to the victims of the 9/11 attack on the Pentagon.

A large part of the section focused on the lives lost and the impact on surviving family members, a human dimension that is often overlooked.

I was struck by the story of 8-year-old Anthony Tolbert, as told to his mother Shari. Anthony was only 18 months old when his father, Lt. Commander Otis Vincent Tolbert, died. Here are excerpts from Anthony’s story, which I could not find on the Web:

My mom told my sisters, who are older than me, that our dad wasn’t coming home anymore.

I think everybody thought that I understood what happened. But I didn’t. I really just thought my dad was at work from before I got up in the morning until after I went to bed at night. It’s the only thing that made sense to me. …

Now that I know my dad is dead and not just at work, I am trying to get used to the idea of not having a dad around. … I wonder sometimes what that feels like, to be with your dad. …

I kind of wish I had been older when 9/11 happened so that I could have understood what was happening. Sometimes I imagine that I would have been at home and would have seen what was happening on the news or even out a window. I would have called my dad’s cell phone number and told him to get out of the building.

My grandfather has taught me a lot about airplanes, and I think I could have calculated where the plane would have landed. If I had been there, maybe I could have saved my dad.

I don’t really remember anything about my dad. I dream about him sometimes, but the dreams are like slide shows of pictures I’ve seen of him. Sometimes I stop in the hall and stare at the pictures. I try so hard to remember.

Deep down inside, I feel sad once in a while. Some days, I try to erase it from my mind and to pretend that day never happened.