A sympathy e-mail from a woman in Germany barely remembered, or a poster of a New York City skyline never forgotten.

        The little things.

        Six months after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, many of the eight local families who lost loved ones embrace the moments that used to disappear in the details of daily life.

        “These kinds of things out of the blue are very meaningful,” said Bob Peraza of Mason, whose son, Robert, 30, was killed in the World Trade Center Tower One. “People don't know what to do. But a hug and a prayer, that's all we need.”

        Victims were from, or had family in: Blue Ash, Terrace Park, Edgewood, Ky., Erlanger, Ky., Clifton, Liberty Township in Butler County, and in two instances, Mason.

        Two years ago, a German woman working temporarily at Procter & Gamble in Cincinnati had trouble printing a file from her computer. She got assistance that Saturday shift from, as best she could recall, “the short man with an accent.”

        “I helped her,” said Cuba-born Mr. Peraza, whose voice choked with emotion as he described getting that e-mail of condolence. “This person I had met in passing two years ago.”

        Unbelievable. But that's the way it's been for many families.

        The other victim from Mason was Wendy Faulkner, 47, a mother of two teen-age girls whose job took her on a one-day trip to New York — and whose one-woman missionary crusade to help impoverished children didn't die when she did.

        “As strange as it sounds,” said her husband, Lynn Faulkner, “there's an upside and a downside to everything. And there's slight comfort in knowing people haven't forgotten, because we haven't.”

        Relatives left behind still stare blankly at old photos. They half-smile at those who say “It'll get better someday.”

        They struggle to fall asleep. Or they pick up the phone, then put it down.

        Good days chase bad days.

        The good ones are anchored in overwhelming support. At church, at work, in their neighborhoods, at school events, at the grocery store.

        And they use these moments to persevere in ways big and small.

        The youngest Tristate victim was 24, United Flight 11 passenger Kelly Booms, a Miami University grad from Blue Ash. The oldest was 56, Pentagon accountant Martha Reszke, whose brother-in-law, John, and his family live in Liberty Township.

        John Reszke is straight-back military. His grandfather served in World War I; his father in World War II; he in Vietnam, and his brother, Jim, now a widower, in the Persian Gulf war.

        Mr. Reszke has a simple message.

        “Life does go on, granted, but never put this on the back burner,” he said.

        When the first hijacked plane hit the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, he called his brother.

        “I told him, this was a terrorist act,” he said.

        He told him to call his wife at the Pentagon and tell her to get out. Moments later, American Airlines Flight 77 crashed into the roof directly above her office in the finance department.

        Mr. Reszke, Mr. Faulkner and Mr. Peraza were avid news consumers long before Sept. 11. They follow international developments. One day didn't change that; it drove it home.

        “I was thinking just a half-hour ago, literally Fox News hasn't been turned off, other than a few hours, since (Sept. 11),” Mr. Faulkner said. “And I'm sure some shrink would have a field day with that.”

        Of the U.S. soldiers now fighting and dying in Afghanistan, he said, “My wife and the 3,000 others just made the mistake of going to work that day. In my heart, I think these (soldiers) have a small piece of their hearts to avenge what happened to Wendy.”

        Reminders spring from unlikely places, including a wall over a bed in a ski lodge in upstate New York.

        The Faulkners moved here several years ago from Syracuse, N.Y. Once a year they would meet old friends at upstate's Peek'n Peak Ski Resort, near Erie, Pa.

        Arriving last month, Mr. Faulkner saw that they'd been assigned the same condominium as last year.

        He got to the bedroom he and Wendy shared, looked at the wall above it — and saw a framed poster of the pre-Sept. 11 New York City skyline.

        “It was probably there last time, but I didn't notice it before,” he recalled. “I thought of taking it down, but I didn't.”

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