Bev Titus wasn’t there that day. She was back home in Dayton, preparing to take part in a living memorial to her daughter.
Since Alicia’s death on United Airlines Flight 175, her parents have devoted their lives to working for peace. Bev believes it’s what their daughter, a flight attendant, would have wanted them to do: “Everyone she met, she wanted to know as a human being; she wanted to make connections. This is a continuation of that.”
The Dayton International Peace Museum’s annual peace camp has become one of the most meaningful and rewarding aspects of that activism.
“I’m doing this for my children and grandchildren, in the hope for a more peaceful tomorrow,” Titus explained. Alicia, who died at 28, was the oldest of the couple’s four children.
What if the 9/11 terrorists had attended a peace camp in their childhood? “Al Qaeda, the Taliban and ISIS teach and train their followers from a very young age,” Titus noted. “These children hear that message and they grow up to believe it with every molecule of their being. I believe we can do the same thing with peace with our youth.”
The campers listen with rapt attention as Janet Lawson explained a meditation technique known as transformational breathing. “Peace starts from within,” she told them. “And breathing is a powerful tool.”
Titus’ grandson, Logan Poston, 15, of Troy, is one of eight mentors helping out last week with 36 campers ages 4 to 12.
He believes the message is getting through: “It helps you to open up to people and to interact well with them in a more peaceful way, without getting mad.”
Concurred fellow mentor Christian Maschetti, 14, of Clayton, “Peace camp teaches children different ways of solving problems instead of fighting and yelling. You learn not to keep things bottled up and then explode, but how to let go of those feelings in a healthy way. Now I write more to get my feelings and emotions out.”
Titus believes that Alicia would have especially approve of peace camp: “She loved kids. She and her fiancé were just at a place where they were ready to think about having children.”
That’s a future that will never be, and even after nearly 14 years, she said, “It’s still hard to believe that it’s real. It’s still hard to get it.”
Titus and her husband John, of St. Paris, have established Alicia’s Peace Fund through the Urbana University Community Fund as well as the annual Alicia Titus Memorial Run for Peace. They also are tireless public speakers, hoping to spread the message of Alicia’s life. Her father described it this way on the Alicia’s Peace Fund website: “She totally opposed violence, acts of terrorism, hate, prejudice, killing or any act against another living thing. Her true nature and human existence were totally opposite of the evil forces that took her life.”
Peace activism so consumed the couple’s life, Titus recalled, “that something had to give. So we quit our jobs.”
Next year, in commemoration of the 15th anniversary of 9/11, Titus plans to devote herself to the museum’s proposed “Peace Heroes Walk Around the World.” It’s a continuation of the theme of the May 2 “Peace Heroes Walk” which drew 1,000 people to downtown Dayton. Sixty teams walked in honor of
Walk director Lonnie Franks of Oakwood said he hopes to organize 50 peace heroes walks in 50 cities around the globe, including Dayton. (The event is still in the planning stages, pending approval from the executive committee of the museum’s board.) “It’s a big project, and I like big projects,” said Franks, retired director of engineering for NCR who now works as an independent contractor. “This will put my organizational skills to the test. I would like to put to rest the urban legend that people who organize for peace aren’t as well-organized as people who organize for war.”
The “Peace Heroes” concept is unifying, rather than polarizing, observes Peace Museum executive director Jerry Leggett. “We’re not just saying, ‘I’m against this. It’s a community coming together to reject vengeance, promote justice and recognize our interconnectedness.”
Concurred Franks, “We’re all in this together.” And the Titus family’s participation would send a powerful message, he added: “They are telling the story of what happened and working so that another 9/11 doesn’t occur.”
For Bev and John Titus, it’s a way of extending the legacy of the lively, loving, adventurous daughter they lost much too soon. “Her spirit still lives,” Bev said.
Contact this columnist at maryjomccarty@gmail.com.
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