For Mrs. Smith & Her Compatriots

Irene Smith, who lost her son Leon, a firefighter at Ladder Co. 118 in Brooklyn Heights, lays bare a truth that startles me every year at this time. "Throughout the year, I always feel I'm going fine, but as soon as 9/11 comes around, I feel like I'm back to square one. I feel like it was just like yesterday. The families will never forget -- rain, hail, shine, whatever."

Thankfully, I am not in that same group. My daughter-in-law was not at her desk on the 22nd floor of the South Tower that morning. My grandson, a first grader a few blocks north at P.S. 89 on Warren Street was picked up and evacuated by a family friend. My brother-in-law got clear even though he was caught out in the open when the South Tower came down. I made it through and can sit here eight years later and write this piece. Still, each in our own way, we note the day. Each in our own way feel the weight of our own remembrances.

For me each year brings the determination to stoically face it this time. Each year brings the anger. Each year reopens the unhealed wound. Each year brings the flood of unbearable sorrow and the unstoppable tears.

Here it is, September 12th. The two blazing beacons are gone from the night sky. The tears have dried. The alcohol I consumed last night is sufficiently gone from my system that, with a deep exhalation, I will pick up the chores left undone yesterday. The images of sweet faces and hellish horrors recede into the shadows of my mind to wait upon their next calling forth by a date, by a low flying aircraft, by a page of paper floating by on a beautiful cloudless autumn day.

Never gone.

Never forgotten.
.