Fighting the Sept. 11th Birthday Blues

What's a 9/11 birthday girl (or boy) to do: celebrate, mourn, or both? For those born on the anniversary of the worst terror attacks in American history, birthdays are an awkward balancing act, notes the New York Times. "It’s hard to celebrate when you know thousands of people are directly mourning a loss, and millions of others are mourning indirectly," says one man born that day. "It’s the 800-pound gorilla in the corner.”

To deal with the awkward date, one birthday girl created Birthday Spirit, a website that encourages people to take cakes to fire stations. Others celebrate, gorillas or not. About to turn 40, one woman decided to take a dream trip to Europe. “The most profound effect on me from the World Trade Center was realizing how short life is,” she says. “What I took from it was: carpe diem.”

(More September 11 stories.)