Lower Manhattan - Part 2

It was an atypically warm Saturday in November. There was a bit of a breeze when we exited the subway, but what we noticed was the odor in the air.

Neither of us knew what to expect, so we weren't surprised by the crowds. We were surprised, though, that even after seven weeks had passed the air was thick and the odor unlike anything we had ever experienced. Someone was handing out dust masks, which my wife put on immediately.

Not knowing where to go, we just followed the crowds. At each corner we'd peer to the right, straining to see through the hordes of people. We'd catch glimpses of twisted metal or crushed concrete until we'd snake and inch our way to the front of the masses; there, separated from the activity by a police barricade, we got a better view of the horror.

Just why we went to Lower Manhattan that November day, I really can't say. Why we had to get to the front for a better view, I can't say either. Nor can I speak for the tens of thousands others doing the same. What I know is we had to go.

Several firemen, dirty and exhausted, answered questions as they stood on the other side of the barricade. I remember I wasn't interested in what they were saying because they didn't have the answer to the only question I had. No one had the answer. Even today, 7 years later, no one has the answer.

St. Paul's Chapel, just one block away, somehow escaped damage. It became both a sanctuary for the firemen, police and rescue workers, as well as a makeshift memorial (it's wrought iron fence became the perfect gallery walls for some of the most touching, most emotional and most heartbraking artwork one would ever see). The Reverend Lyndon Harris of St. Paul's put into words the importance of the historic church during this trying time. "Emerging at St. Paul’s was a dynamic I think of as a reciprocity of gratitude, a circle of thanksgiving—in which volunteers and rescue and recovery workers tried to outdo each other with acts of kindness and love, leaving both giver and receiver changed. This circle of gratitude was infectious."

Outside the chapel it was the silence that was infectious. All of these people and not a sound. Very few spoke, and then only in hushed whispers. There was nothing anyone could say. The scene, the St. Paul's memorials, the thought of the horror less than two months earlier, the stories of heroism, the rescue and recovery efforts of the volunteers, the thousands of innocent victims, the overriding question "Why?" - no single person would dare compete by speaking. There was a lot of crying though. Silent, keep-to-yourself crying. The kind of crying that doesn't make you feel better. The kind of crying that lasts forever.

To be continued ...