...to ever recover from 9/11.

The 9 AM anniversary of 9/11 has just passed, the point of the first plane to hit the North Tower. Memories jerk me backward. The second plane has already hit the South, and both buildings are ablaze in the top-most floors. Some people trapped there are using the last drop of will they have, and jumping to their deaths. Emergency vehicles are swarming to the spot; crowds are gathering, drawn to the dying buildings. A flight from Boston to California has been hijacked. Another is headed for Washington DC.

Across the United States millions are breathlessly watching, their minds scrolling through the list of people they know in New York City, fingers frantically punching in phone numbers, or email addresses. Parents with grown children in the city are getting in their cars, from as far away as California. Clergy are preparing for vigils. The military and police services are cancelling leaves.

In countries with media access, the news that America has taken a hit sends shockwaves through capitals, newsrooms, and financial markets. A sudden global insecurity grips the guts of government officials.

I am not yet reacting on a clear blue day in Michigan, setting up to do some writing, noting that the house painter has begun to tackle the front, and is up on hisladder. My friend next door calls urgently. "Have you heard from Adam? Is he working on Wall Street? Put on your television right away!"

I do. And I see. After 10 seconds, I rush to the phone to call Adam and Kelly. They are supposed to be on a plane to California! They do not answer, and I leave a message on phone and email: ARE YOU OKAY? I rush to the computer, and type an email to Alexis, Adam's mother-in-law in New Jersey: "Have you heard from them. Are they OKAY?"

I call Rob: 'COME HOME.' I awake Dan in Madison: 'Put on the television right away. There has been an attack on the World Trade Center in NYC. We haven't yet heard from them.' The painter checks in, then leaves.

Adam. Kelly. I feel a rising panic, just as Alexis returns my email: They are ALL RIGHT. Tremendous relief. One by one, we get the all clear from friends and family with children in New York and Washington. We are the lucky ones; many are not.

Something stirs within me. I've just spent 10 days in New York City. I cannot desert this beloved city, my birthplace. I want to help, I want to feel the warm cheeks of Adam and Kelly, and I want to go. Colleagues do not respond to my idea that, as mental health workers, we should rent a van and head for New York. Rob does after a call from Reuters, driving himself there, and helping out a company he just finished training in Ann Arbor. Six weeks later, I join the Red Cross and spend 12 intense days helping families.

It was an unforgettable, transformative experience.

Today, for some reason on this particular anniversary, I am drawn backward, to the families I met, and tried-- in vain--to help.

What do I find on the Internet?

That John Burnside's remains were found 10 days after I finished my work as a Red Cross worker, and visited his widow Sandra on the upper East Side.

That Lucia Crifasi, whose Italian mother could not face me when I came to the house, now has a street named after her in Queens, at 69th Street and Myrtle Avenue

That the parents of Yelena Melnichenko from Lithuania have been denied access to Yelena's young son, Erik, whom I met with his young widowed father.

That only partial remains of Jeanette Menichino were found, but her mother volunteers at the Tribute Museum I visited last year at Ground Zero, and her husband Anthony, so desperately suicidal when I met him, is probably still alive.

That the common-law husband of Ruth Ketler, the poet Robert Dow, seems never to have published again.

That Anthony Luparello's daughter attended the trial of Moussaoui, 2006. I helped her daughter make a trip to Ground Zero to see where her grandfather was killed.

No spaces exist between one moment in time, and the next. For all of these families, 9/11/2001 is right next to 9/11/2008.