Henry A. Barrios / The Californian Like millions of people across the country, Cathie Ong-Herrera got a call from a family member as the events of Sept. 11 unfolded.

"I LOVE YOU LOTS." Cathie Ong-Herrera may have some regrets, but fretting over words left unsaid is not one of them. She and her younger sister Betty conveyed their love for each other every day of their adult lives, in words spoken or written.

Betty Ann Ong, a flight attendant aboard American Airlines Flight 11, is gone now. But she leaves Cathie, a Bakersfield dental hygienist, with a gift - something Cathie never fathomed she might possess in such measure. Courage.

This is courage: Hijackers have slashed the throat of a passenger, stabbed two flight attendants and taken control of the plane, and Betty Ong is on the phone with an airline reservations agent who's in North Carolina. She's describing the situation from the back of the cabin in hushed tones, but with a matter-of-fact presence that still seems startling, a year later.

Betty, 45, has determined that four hijackers have come from first-class seats: 2A, 2B, 9A and 9B. The wounded passenger - possibly already dead - is in seat 10B, she says. The hijackers have hit the cabin with some sort of spray that makes everyone's eyes burn, and Betty says she is having trouble breathing.

"Is the plane descending?" the reservations agent asks.

"We're starting to descend. We're starting to descend," Betty answers in a steady voice.

The plane is flying erratically, the transponder is dead and, oddly, the hijackers have not indicated whether they might have any demands. Now the plane is making a rapid descent; now people in the cabin can see water and buildings. Now the plane is flying sideways. Sideways. "Pray for us," Betty Ong tells the reservations agent.

This is courage: It is the night of Feb. 10, the eve of that awful day's five-month remembrance, and Cathie Ong-Herrera, 51, is in a darkened hotel room in Boston. In a few hours, she will give a speech at historic Fanuiel Hall in front of 500 people, including Sen. Ted Kennedy, Sen. John Kerry and Massachusetts Gov. Jane Swift.

Cathie is terrified, restless, agitated. Tired of tossing and turning, she gets up and paces the floor. Finally she pulls back the curtain and sits. It's snowing.

"I sat there and watched it," Cathie said. "And I told myself, 'You know what? If Betty can do what she did, you can give a speech.'"

And so she did.

"I've found a lot of strength," Cathie said, "in what Betty did."

What Betty did:

"Her tone was always calm, very professional," Cathie said. "She was in charge. She was in charge (of the cabin), and she acted like she was in charge. She was the first to tell the country we were being attacked."

Cathie had planned to meet Betty in Los Angeles; Betty was going to take her big sister to Hawaii that Thursday. She'd just purchased a boogie board, she'd told Cathie, and she was anxious to use it.

Instead, Cathie was in San Francisco that evening, where the sisters grew up. She was meeting with family members, including their middle sister Gloria, and a minister. Cathie's inconceivable test of strength was about to get under way.

The world will hear about Betty Ann Ong's courage again. Cathie, who moved to Bakersfield in 1990 with her husband, insurance broker Ed Herrera, said she's been notified that a tape of Betty's last phone conversation will be played at the trial of accused Sept. 11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui. The proceedings begin Jan. 6.

"I'm damn proud of her," Cathie said. "It's been a very tough year for all of us. It's difficult to talk about, (because) you've got to open it up and live it again. But it's important."

She resents the fact that some people seem to want to put Sept. 11 behind them.

"People out there in general care about what has happened, but as time goes on, if you weren't directly affected, you're more likely to act like, 'Let's just get on with our lives now,'" Cathie said. "Maybe it's just not possible to understand until you're in this position. It's like being in a club that nobody wants to join.

"You always hear that when God closes one door, he opens another. I keep asking God, how big a door is he going to open? Because the door he closed is so big. It's so big."

Maybe an accumulation of small doors will help. Perhaps a Betty Ong foundation: Something to help children and seniors, people that Betty especially enjoyed. Or justice for the families of the victims: Cathie intends to lend her support to an investigation into the hows and whys of Sept. 11. Or a message to sisters and brothers, parents and children, everywhere: Don't put yourself in the position of having to tell yourself how you wish you'd said this or that, before everything changed. Say it now.

Cathie Ong-Herrera does not have to concern herself with that last thing, because even today she can still hear those words, Betty's signature sign-off on her phone calls and e-mails:

"I love you lots."

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