For Whom the Bell Tolls

Once again, it's September 11 and six long years have gone by. Fighting a cold, buried in work, I didn't forget.

How could I, when every morning I walk along the waterfront in Hoboken, that gaping hole still a silent testament to the lost souls. Every morning, I remember. Every day outside my building, I see the monument to the steel workers who responded, the base made of the twisted Twin Tower steel. And the glass memorial to the ICAP employees who perished that day.

Today was a gray, rainy, humid day in the New York metro area. A far cry from that incredibly glorious September day, when our lives changed in a split second. It was fittingly mournful, the weather.

A beloved friend reminded me tonight that I had pushed it out of my mind temporarily. He was there that day, just a guy who ran to help. And saw the horrors. The dead will not be forgotten. But it is the living who we need to soothe. I still cry for the widows, the children, the parents, the friends, who lost someone. I cried for them that day too, little knowing that in a few short months, I would understand loss far better than I could have ever imagined.

My friend, who stood that day in the ruins of humanity, struggling to help where he could, feels the pain of this day far more than I could. I wish I could take his pain away. But perhaps we all need to keep the pain alive.