A 911 Diary: The Exhibit/The Hill In Memoriam...and Renewal
	1/18/02: it's been a long time since i posted anything about my ground zero experiences, but today brought it up fresh for me. i also want to share information about an exhibit i hope some of you will be able to see, as it travels around the country.   the approximately one million TONS of debris removed from ground zero over the last four months to a landfill create a mountain of dirt, building rubble, remains, and personal effects many respectfully call The Hill. workers there, including police, sanitation, firefighters and civilians (and the fbi), have been painstakingly sifting through this mountain of debris for personal effects, hoping to find items to return to families and/or aid with identification. every salvageable item is labeled, bagged, and sent to forensic labs for analysis and hopefully attribution. it is tedious work and overwhelming in the magnitude of the task. it occurred to some of us that the work also is probably emotionally wrenching, as workers come across body parts (whole bodies and torsos are hopefully pre-sifted at the ground zero site), items of clothing or jewelry, mementos, badges, and photos. as the effort winds down, a few of us decided to speak with some of these workers, and today was the day. but before that, i stopped, with a firefighter friend, at grand central terminal, where i was meeting others for the van trip to the hill, to see an extraordinary exhibit with which some of you may be familiar.   the exhibit: Joe McNally, a photographer, had acquired a room sized polaroid "camera", built for an old world's fair, that can take bigger than life-sized pictures; people stand inside the room/camera, their picture is taken, and instantly processed. in the months after sept. 11, he invited survivors---firefighters, police, construction workers, medical, civic, and religious personnel, families, and wtc employees---to come in and have their pictures taken, and tell a bit of their individual stories. he has selected about 80 of these pictures, all nine feet tall, and presented them, each with a plaque with the pictured people's names, affiliations, stories, and brief quotes from them about what those days were like. the exhibit, organized by time/warner and sponsored here by morgan stanley, who had offices in the wtc, ends sunday here and then travels to other cities.   i thought it would be interesting for me to see this, having spent so many days and nites counseling these people and sharing their grief; i even thought it might be uplifting for me to see survivors' stories to counteract the heavy sadness of the many victims' stories i've heard. i suppose it was, but it was also incredibly painful for me. reading their words brought back those first days, when we all were walking around in shock tempered with hope, and the later days when hopes were dashed, reality set in, and we moved through the hours in a constant, suffocating cloud of grief. i recognized a number of faces, firefighters i'd listened to, and talked with, and grieved with, and family members and workers who came into the assistance center to try to begin the long and agonizing healing process: i remembered the nyc firefighter who went looking for his brother (also a nyc firefighter) with his brother-in-law, coincidentally a firefighter from my home town, whose wife (the missing man's sister) i knew from the neighborhood; i was there on september 21 when he himself recovered his brother's body. i remembered the firefighter who'd been off duty that first day, but rushed to the scene, where I'd had coffee with him while he kept repeating "people are supposed to be rushing out, or calling for rescue---but no one was coming out after the collapse. there's no one to rescue." I recalled the older firefighter, on medical leave and about to retire on sept. 11, who worked tirelessly, despite a heart condition and our admonishments, in the weeks of recovery and who has now decided not to retire, because so many raw rookies were rushed on the job in the months after to replace lost men and women, and it's a tradition in the fire department "for us old guys to take the young ones under our wing and show them what it means to be a firefighter." there was the mother of a firefighter (he was killed when he rushed to the scene though off duty and was caught in the collapse after going up to rescue people) who simply said "that was george." and i'd comforted one of the few survivors from cantor fitzgerald, who told his seven-months pregnant assistant to sit and relax while he went to the lobby to greet visiting bigwigs, usually her task, so he was down there when the plane hit and therefore survived while she died. i had arrived at grand central more than an hour before the van was to meet me; i thought more than enough time to see the exhibit, and relax over a cup of coffee. but i had to stop too many times walking through the photos, sit on a bench in a corner, and cry on my friend's shoulder, as i relived so many moments that will never leave my memory. by the time we left in the van for the landfill, i was shaken and hurting, and needed the trip to push those feelings aside and open up for the task ahead.   the hill: the workers at the hill are indeed hurting. just being there for part of day was extremely painful for me; they've been there for months. despite attempts to sift out as many human remains as possible at ground zero before the debris is trucked off, body parts were a not uncommon find, and even whole bodies or torsos slipped through the on-site recovery. but even the material finds make a tragic collage photos of smiling families that once decorated desks of proud parents and spouses, bringing home the understanding that those families are now bereft, religious medals that once graced young necks in the hope, now dashed, of keeping the wearer safe, battered badges of police and firefighters mute testimony to their bravery and ultimate sacrifice, a watch still ticking while the heart of the person who once wore it is silenced forever, a card with a lamaze class appointment penciled in by an excited mother-to-be who will never be...these are the items they have dealt with daily, and each tells a poignant story that grips their hearts anew.   once again, i am surprised at how fresh the pain lurks just under the surface. i know we are changed forever, and hope once again that i will allow that change to make me a better person, remember what really matters and celebrate the joy of being alive, and renew my commitment to be an instrument of peace, healing, and love, a task once easy in the face of the tragedy but now sometimes remarkably difficult in its challenge as life intrudes. pray for us all. and thanx for being there for me.

continue to closing ceremonies--->