NEW YORK — In a small glass box lay the artifacts of a son's life.

There was a driver's license bearing an address to which Alexander Braginsky would never return after Sept. 11, 2001. There was his employee ID card and a dusty wallet, recovered the day after the terror attacks, bearing a crumpled bank card.

"I realized when I go, somebody will come to the apartment and just throw everything away," Melly Braginsky said, explaining why she put her only child's possessions on display Monday. "That's why I came here. … I'm doing everything for his memory."

As the nation commemorates the sixth anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks today, Braginsky and dozens of others whose loved ones perished that day gathered near Ground Zero to participate in a forum focused more on remembrance than mourning.

With the theme "Preserving 9/11," the annual conference hosted by the advocacy group Voices of Sept. 11th launched the 9/11 Living Memorial, a digital repository of photographs and mementoes of those who died in the 2001 attacks and the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center.

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Voices founder Mary Fetchet said a transition is taking place with this anniversary. "The fifth anniversary was a milestone and there was such a buildup," said Fetchet, whose 24-year-old son, Brad, died in the World Trade Center. "Now with the sixth anniversary, we can think of commemorating the lives of our family members."

Other commemorations will take place today near the Pentagon and in Pennsylvania where United Flight 93 crashed.

Relatives of those killed in New York were encouraged Monday to bring photographs, newspaper tributes and other keepsakes to be digitally scanned and archived for inclusion in the memorial. Several items were put on display, along with quilts stitched with the names of those who died.

Representatives of the city medical examiner's office spoke to family members about continuing efforts to find and identify remains. The forum gave survivors and relatives the chance to commune before today's official commemorative ceremony.

For the first time, the observance will take place at a nearby park instead of Ground Zero because of construction at the site. Though city officials initially were not going to allow anyone at the site, a compromise was reached to permit family members to descend for a few minutes to lay flowers.

Anything less would have been unacceptable, said Braginsky, whose 38-year-old son worked for Reuters and was attending a meeting at Windows on the World on Sept. 11th.

"It's the only place where we can pray. … Of course we have to go," she said.

Others said that they will not attend the official ceremony, weary of the painful memories at Ground Zero that will be all the more searing because this anniversary falls on Tuesday — the same weekday as the original attacks.

"This is the first anniversary that's been on a Tuesday," said Kurt Horning, whose 26-year-old son, Matthew, worked for Marsh McLennan and died on the 95th floor of the North Tower.

Early on, Horning said, he told his wife, Diane, "I don't think I'll be able to go into the city that day. It'll be too hard."

So the Hornings will remember their son elsewhere. "I'm going to find a spiritual place with meaning for my family and get some solace" there, said Diane Horning.