Victims' relatives gather 14 years after September 11 attacks

In New York, families of the victims read their names in a solemn and poignantly familiar pattern, watched over by service members in their dress uniforms.

Emblematic of the generations affected, children who were not old enough to remember their late relatives or had yet to meet them participated in the roll call.

"We are so blessed to have you as an angel and we are empty without you, we love you very much," said Daniel Pagan, who lost his cousin Melissa Candida Doi in the attack.

Families hugged each other close, some carrying photographs or wearing t-shirts depicting lost loved ones, or bearing placards with the words 'we will never forget.'

First responders were thanked numerous times by the family members for their work on what became known as 'the pile.'

Many of those who were first on the scene and those who worked for weeks afterwards searching through the rubble are still suffering from various illnesses brought on by the toxic air.

Mourners stood at the empty footprint of the World Trade Center Twin Towers, toppled by two hijacked airliners on that clear, sunny morning in 2001.

"It doesn't get any easier," said Malcolm Dean, a first responder and paramedic with the New York Fire Department on 9/11. He lost his younger brother William and colleagues.

"Fourteen years later it's not any easier standing here than it was the first year and the second year."

Music and the soothing sounds of the waterfalls emptying into reflecting pools at the at 9/11 Memorial and Museum formed a backdrop as families placed flowers against their loved ones' names engraved in the bronze panels.

A veteran's trumpet salute closed the ceremony after nearly four hours, with the emptying plaza hushed and subdued.

"We come here every year. We live in New Jersey. The crowds keep getting less, but my wife and I, as long as we're breathing, we'll be here," said Tom Acquaviva, who with his wife Josephine, lost their son Paul when the towers fell.