They are the final gifts their fathers left behind.

Known as the Children of 9/11, they were the 100 or so babies born after their fathers died on September 11, 2001, in the worst terrorist attack in U.S. history. PEOPLE first introduced them in a cover story just a few months after 9/11 and then again 10 years later in 2011.

Now, 17 years after 9/11, PEOPLE is once again catching up with several of those kids – now teenagers – and their families in a new special Children of 9/11, 15 Years Later on the PEOPLE/Entertainment Weekly Network (PEN).

“These children are what comes after 9/11,” says Jenna Jacobs, whose son Gabriel was born six days after the death of his father Ariel. “They are the joy, the salve, the ointment. They’re the love.”

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