The bronze images capture a good time in their young lives, which ended on the same day 17 years ago.

He's smiling, a snake curling around his forearm. She holds a fluffy cat in her lap. Brother and sister, their bronzed images invite you to linger at Zoo Atlanta. And so you do, in the shadows where children whoop and tumble at the playground. You run your hand over their heads, shiny from the caresses of other strangers. You read the inscription:

LOUIE FAVORITE/AJC (ENLARGE)

Statues of Laura and Brian Birdsong at Zoo Atlanta. The siblings died 17 years ago, April 5, 1991, in a plane crash.

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Dedicated in loving memory of Brian and Laura Birdsong

Their spirit and love of animals will live on through the joy that all children find in nature.

Brian: June 2, 1981 - April 5, 1991

Laura: May 30, 1984 - April 5, 1991

Laura and Brian Birdsong were Decatur kids. They loved visiting the zoo, where Brian invariably headed to the World of Reptiles, dragging mom Isabelle Birdsong behind. Then they'd head downhill to the spot where the lions sunned themselves, their tails flicking at flies. Laura liked that.

The trio always wound up at the playground, hard against the tiny tracks where Zoo Atlanta's train has been making the circuit for decades. Mom would take a break while her kids ran and jumped like young animals. No surprise there: In the last year of their lives, Brian was 9, a third-grader; Laura, a beaming first-grader, was 6.

On April 5, 1991, they were on ASA flight No. 2311, a commuter airplane that crashed in stand of pines and hardwoods near the Brunswick Glynco Jetport. The plane exploded — one witness called the downed aircraft "a big metal mountain of rubble" — and claimed the life of former Texas Sen. John Tower, among others.

Twenty-three people died that afternoon, including a boy who loved snakes and a girl charmed by cats.

The two were on their way to visit grandparents in St. Simon. It was supposed to be a quick hop from Atlanta's Hartsfield International Airport, a brief period in the clouds before descending into Glynn County. Isabelle Birdsong Smock never saw her children alive again.

"It's the worst nightmare," said Birdsong Smock "that you'll outlive your children."

Claire Richardson, at the time an executive vice president at the zoo, understood. When she learned that the crash killed two children who'd been zoo regulars, she made their grieving mom a proposal — that their names live for all time, in a happy spot. At the zoo.

"It was a very tough time," said Richardson, who now heads the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund International, based at Zoo Atlanta.

A time for healing, too. Richardson had seen statutes of children at the Denver Zoo, sculpted by Colorado artist Susan Raymond. Richardson was struck by how the bronzed images nearly shimmered with life, crackled with youthful energy. She put Birdsong in touch with Raymond.

Thus began a long process of raising money to create statues of Brian and Laura. Zoo members, visitors, friends gave, and the fund grew. By 1997, it had reached nearly $15,000. Birdsong Smock headed to Colorado with photographs and memories of her children. She went twice, suggesting subtle changes in the statutes to more fully capture the spark of two lives extinguished too quickly.

The zoo dedicated the statues in May 30, 1998, at a leafy spot in easy reach of youngsters looking for something to climb. The first children to clamber those statues are likely in high school now.

"Oh, it brings me nearly to tears now — to see children playing on them," said Birdsong Smock, who now lives in Dawsonville. "It's a wonderful thing for your heart."

A wonderful thing to visit, too. Mom still comes to the zoo every chance she can. First, she goes to the World of Reptiles, where she recalls a boy who strained to see every snake, every lizard. Then she strolls downhill to admire the lions, to capture the ghost of a girl.

Finally, she ends up near the playground, and heads for a leafy spot. She watches children clamber and laugh on two bronze images. Her heart soars.