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Light a Candle
The little room on the 99th floor of the World Trade Center's North Tower meant a great deal to Richard Allen and Sean Booker.
Every morning before work, the two friends would head to the storage room and read scriptures from the Bible and pray.
The two, who also served as Christian ministers at churches in New York and New Jersey, would sometimes prepare their sermons in the small space.
It was quiet and gave them a place to reflect, family members of the two said.
It is in that room where family members believe the two men died when American Airlines Flight 11 crashed into the tower, less than 15 minutes before 9 a.m.
The two usually would stay in the storage room until 9 a.m., when Allen would go to work on the 98th floor for the mailroom at Marsh & McLennan Cos., while Booker would go to the 93rd floor, fixing photocopying machines for the firm.
"Richie and Sean would always go into work early," said Allen's mother, Denise. "Every morning, without fail, they would read the Bible and pray. I think they were doing that when they died."
Allen, 30, of Brooklyn was a minister at Rivers of Living Waters Ministries in Brooklyn, while Booker, 35, of Newark was a pastor at Tabernacle Outreach Ministries in Newark.
They met while working in the American Express building across the street from the World Trade Center and then moved across the street to Marsh after Booker found a job there.
About a week before the terrorist attack, Allen invited his mother, a folk artist, to speak at Rivers of Living Waters Ministries. "Our destiny is already written, I've believed that for quite a long time," Denise Allen said. "There's a reason God allowed this to happen."
For Sharon Booker, though, questions linger. On the day of the terrorist attack, she had begun a new job in the Met Life building in midtown Manhattan--giving her a clear view of the airplane crashing into her husband's building.
"You can't question God," she said. "But now I feel that when I leave the house I won't come back. I just want to feel peace and comfort, but I can't."
He is also survived by their three children, Sean Jr., 5, and twins, Denzel and Danielle, 3.
http://inmemoriamonline.net/Profiles/Folders/A_Folder/Allen_RichardL.html
