(2006) Following the death of their husbands, Patrick and David, who were flying when the planes crashed into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, Patti Quigley and Susan Retik, both pregnant Boston-area mothers at the time, decided they didn't want to live that day for the rest of their lives.

Director/producer Beth Murphy's documentary tells the story of how these two widows transformed their grief into improving the lives of widows in Afghanistan by raising money for CARE International through their organization Beyond the 11th. "I have tried to turn this into something other than hatred," Patti tells an audience of law-enforcement officers.

Over a quarter century of war has produced more than half a million widows in one of the world's poorest countries, also beset with drought and illiteracy. Most Afghans, with a life expectancy of 47 years, have never known peace in their lifetime. Believing that if we "teach love and kindness," Susan says, "that's the way terrorism will end."

On September 11, 2004, the two mothers - Patti with two girls, Susan having three children (her boy Ben writes his first words: "Wi did mi dad di") - begin bicycling from Ground Zero in Manhattan to Boston, covering 250 miles in three days, to generate publicity and funds for their program of supporting widows and their children by providing them with chickens and incubators.

They reminded Americans that none of the terrorists who attacked the US were Afghans, that these women, many of whom were innocent victims of war, often denied education and confined to their homes unless covered head-to-toe in burqas, without husbands had no means of supporting themselves, thus perpetuating a vicious cycle of poverty and illiteracy. Widows interviewed were badly informed of the tragedy in the US on 9/11; one thought a tall (five floors) building had been destroyed while another believed only five people had died in an airplane crash.

On the personal side, Patti speaks of not wanting to be forever defined as a 9/11 widow - she will eventually remarry; Susan admits to feeling lonely.

In May 2005, following the abduction of CARE International's Clementina Cantoni, with whom Beyond the 11th had been linked, the two Americans put off making a trip to Afghanistan, fearful of causing their children more uncertainty; the aid worker was released and met with Patti and Susan, who later flew to Kabul in May 2006.

There for eight days they witness first hand the sight of blue burqas and neediness everywhere they turn; they hear through interpreters tragic stories of children dying of starvation, family members killed from bombings, an explanation that a woman who remarries cannot take her children with her into her new home, pleas for help.

In "a life-changing experience," their vision and conviction to assist widows (though limited to 400 at a time) through training to become self-sufficient is powerfully reinforced. Susan expresses an embarrassment of riches in comparison to what these people have.

Incrementally with daily decisions, Patti's brother, a Catholic priest, sums up: "We choose our way into being ourselves." Patti and Susan chose restoration over retribution: life and compassion over death and hate.

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Copyright © 2009 Patrick Ivers. All rights reserved.
Reproduced with the permission of the copyright holder.

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