ABSTRACT
Carolyn Ellis believed people each needed to find personal and collective meaning in the events that transpired and in the disrupted and chaotic lives left behind. On the other side of the grief, she hoped people then might be inspired to live better lives, lives based on loving and caring relationships, community, and reaching out to those in need throughout the world. She also hoped that this story would stimulate dialogue among social scientists and qualitative researchers about the meaning of the events of September 11th and the role they might play in understanding and helping people cope with such tragedies. Crashing airplanes, death, and grief were all too familiar to her on a personal level from her brother's death in an airplane, she knew intimately the grief that family members felt. She wanted to understand as much as she could about the personal and collective agony brought on by terrorism.
