An odd thing happened this weekend. I keep on my

bulletin board on my home office a clipping from the Times, one of the

“faces” obits it ran of the WTC dead. My wife and I had met this man, his

wife, and a young relative with whom they were traveling in early 2001, in

Europe. We shared the breakfast table a couple of times, and enjoyed very

much meeting these fellow New Yorkers abroad. The man, whose name I’d rather

not divulge, was killed in the north tower when the plane struck his floor.

His remains were never recovered. I keep that clipping on my bulletin board

to remind me that real people died on that day, including a man I’d broken

bread and shared a laugh with in happier times.

Anyway, at some point over the Easter weekend, I was passing through my

office and something about that clipping caught my eye. I thought: I wonder

how his wife is doing. I wonder how she’s feeling this holiday weekend. I

said a little prayer for her, and went on. This morning, I got to my office,

downloaded my work e-mail — and there was a letter from her! After all this

time! She wrote, in part, that this ordeal “has tested my faith, to say the

least, and not just in a spiritual sense — also faith in the world. I know

now, from personal experience, how much evil really exists in this world. I

feel disdain for those I would call the ’secular absolutists.’ For example,

those who would say that there is no ‘evil person’ in this world, only evil

acts. A distinction that to me is a mere intellectual game.” Yet her letter

was positive, and her recovery continues, though neither she, nor any of us

who lived through that day and its consequences, will ever be the same

again.

Isn’t it strange that on a weekend in which I’d thought about this man and

his widow for the first time in a long time, and even felt moved to pray for

her, that she wrote me out of the blue for the first time since the fall of

2001? Makes one wonder what goes on around us and between us, unseen.