All were widowed a year ago today, and all have come back to New York to visit the place where their husbands died. This morning, they will leave roses at ground zero. They believe the rest of us should stop to remember their husbands too, because what happened in New York happened to us all. "We can't just say it's America's problem," Ms. Basnicki says. "What happened was an attack on all democratic nations."

This morning, dozens of Canadians will join thousands of Americans who have gathered here to commemorate their loved ones. All the church bells will ring across the city. Maureen's 22-year-old daughter Erica will read the names of the 24 Canadian dead. She's been practising to make sure she pronounces them correctly. Her father Ken comes third.

Some of the Canadian families haven't met each other until now. In the quiet hotel reception room that has been set aside for them, they introduce themselves and fall into ready conversation. At last, they are with people who know what they've been through this past year -- the rage, the grief, the nightmares, the shock of a husband or a daughter or a father who one moment was there, and the next moment was ash and dust. "Nobody else understands," says Jessica Bors, who lost her closest brother, Vishnu Ramsaroop. "It's sad, but that's the way it is."

Last night, the families were the guests of honour at a private dinner given by Pamela Wallin, Canada's new consul-general here. Later today, they'll meet with Prime Minister Jean Chrétien.

The three widows are not happy with him, because the government has ignored their pleas for a separate Canadian memorial.

"For an event of this significance, I firmly believe we deserve a memorial in Canada," says Ms. Tomasevic, whose husband Vladimir died on what was his first trip to New York. "A Canadian memorial is not simply something for the victims' families to feel good about," Ms. Basnicki adds.

"It's for generations to come, so that they'll know this was not just an attack on the U.S., but on freedom. We want Canadians to know that we too stopped and reflected on this event."

Coincidentally, Maureen, Tanja and Cindy all lived within a few kilometres of each other in Toronto's west end. (Tanja has since moved to a new townhouse.) They've shared pizza, wine, tears, advice and pain: What to do if you get a telephone call saying they've identified some remains? What to do if there is no call? No wonder nobody else understands.

Every family has its agonizing what-ifs. What if Jessica's brother, a maintenance man, hadn't agreed to switch jobs with someone on a higher floor that day? What if Ken's appointment had been an hour later? The role of chance and luck is a torture that all families of people who have died violently must endure.

Chance and luck were what saved Mathew Makuta. He too has come to New York to remember, perhaps hoping that remembering will help him begin to forget. A year ago this morning, he had an early business meeting at Windows on the World. He got mixed up and went to the wrong tower. Everyone he was to have met died.

After the second tower was hit, Mr. Makuta escaped by jumping down the stairwells from one landing to another.

"I saw a policeman with a metal rod in his back carrying a woman who had lost a leg," he remembers. He had left behind his briefcase, along with the name and address of his hotel, and was in shock. The Red Cross eventually found him in Penn Station.

Mr. Makuta, a slender and soft-spoken man who was born in Tanzania, went into a deep depression after the attacks. "I locked myself into my room. I didn't take public transit. It was very hard."

A few weeks ago he was contacted by John Muise and Tracy Clark, who work for the Ontario government's Office for Victims of Crime. The two of them have put this trip together for the families across Canada, as well as two survivors. Two days ago, Mr. Makuta met the others for the first time. "I feel comfortable with them," he says.

This pilgrimage is not all grim. There's a lot of laughter too.

"Our humour is dark sometimes," says Erica Basnicki. "But if life doesn't go on, the terrorists have won."

Monday, a few of the families went out for dinner together and enjoyed themselves pretty much as tourists do. Jessica brought along her kids, ages 6 and 8, and Tanja brought her father from Yugoslavia. Maureen, a people-loving flight attendant with Air Canada (no, she hasn't gone back to work yet) brought along her friend Holly. If you didn't know, you could not have guessed the tragedy they had in common.

Asked what they hope will come of this terrible event, all the families speak positively of tolerance, peace and understanding. Few of them sound bitter or angry -- although those emotions are there too, sometimes not far beneath the surface. And many of them believe that some Canadians are too naive about the terrible lesson of Sept. 11. Canada has its share of terrorists too, they warn.

And terrorists don't care about borders.

"The multiculturalism in Canada was one reason my husband and I chose it for our new life," says Tanja. A Serb, she came with her husband and four suitcases from war-torn Yugoslavia. "But now, Canadians and Americans are finding there's no running away from fanatics."

"There are no borders so far as I'm concerned," says Jessica Bors, who remembers the ethnic strife of her native Trinidad.

"There should be no tolerance for anyone who doesn't accept what our country stands for," says Maureen Basnicki. "Canada should not be so blind."
mwente@globeandmail.ca