ON A COLD & RAINY DAY MOURNERS PAY RESPECTS TO 9/11 VICTIMS!

Again the bells tolled. Again the bagpipers played. Again the victims' names were read.
And for an eighth time, New York and the nation remembered the moment when America's grandest illusion was shattered.

Only this time, a driving rain masked the tears.

"This is not the rain," Vladimir Boyarsky, holding a droplet-spattered photograph of his slain son, Gennady, said Friday. "This is the tears."

There were blue skies on the day terrorists in hijacked airliners brought down the Twin Towers and attacked the Pentagon eight long years ago.

On this morning, the weather matched the somber mood as mourners gathered at a plaza near Ground Zero to mark that terrible morning.

"Eight years we have come together to commemorate this anniversary," Mayor Bloomberg said. "It is the sacred duty of the living to carry with us the memories of those who were lost."

And then the volunteers who toiled in the pit to rescue the living and salvage the dead - joined by grieving relatives - began reading, in alphabetical order, the names of the more than 2,700 victims of Osama Bin Laden's madness.

As they read, the still heartbroken dads and moms and siblings - roses in hand - made the painful pilgrimage down the ramp to the reflecting pool on the west side of the site to pay their respects.

"It doesn't matter what kind of weather there is," said Elaine Dejesus of Clifton, N.J., whose sister Nereida was killed on 9/11. "I would be here either way. For me, it's just the same as it was the first day."

Esther Di Nardo, whose daughter Marisa was killed, said she could not imagine being anywhere else.

"My daughter's spirit is here and I want to come for her," said Di Nardo, of Westchester County. "That's all I can do for her. No what matter what, rain or shine, I come."

Some of the most bitter tears were shed by the loved ones of the hundreds of city firefighters, police and Port Authority officers who perished in the catastrophe.

William Weaver, a Scottish immigrant, wore a kilt to honor his slain son, NYPD Officer Walter Weaver.
"I go down there, walk around and talk to him," said Weaver, 69, Levittown, LI.

Still, time appeared to have trimmed the number of mourners who gathered at Zuccotti Park and braved the bad weather to observe the anniversary of the worst terror attacks in American history.

The roll call of the dead grew by one this year - Leon Hayward, who died last year of lung disease and lymphoma caused the toxic dust cloud that enveloped him after the towers collapsed.

The mourners bowed their heads when the bells tolled at nearby Trinity Church and fell into the first of three moments of silence.