The Things We Leave Behind

The epic dimensions of Tuesday’s tragedy have summoned a language of superlatives. The worst terrorist attack in U.S. history. New York’s tallest buildings, laid flat. The biggest blow to America’s sense of security since Pearl Harbor.

Historians eventually will try to make sense of the tides sweeping through America. For the moment, however, the random mementos that the victims left behind give an eloquent voice to some of the nation’s private yearnings. An unmade bed, a prized set of golf clubs or a small glass souvenir from a long-ago family outing.

Every one of the some 5,300 missing or dead in the attacks left traces of a life, each as carefully unique as a snowflake. Collectively, these simple things form a mosaic of human experience, a national scrapbook dedicated to a great national theme: the singularity of every individual.

While investigators in New York continue foraging for forensic evidence, it will be left to the families of the missing people to begin sifting through their loved ones’ personal artifacts. Inevitably, in the weeks and months ahead, there will be questions about what to keep and what to let go.

Last week, Americans joined in an elegiac national symphony of somber pride and grief. The stories below are of a different scale, evidence of the loss and longing, and in a few cases--against all odds--of hope.

Reed Johnson

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This was their year of new beginnings: new jobs, new home, new schools for the kids--and new golf clubs.

Jeffrey Dingle, 32, a former tailback for the Villanova University Wildcats (No. 44) and medal-winning sprinter, loves to golf. In fact, the weekend before last week’s disaster, the native New Yorker arrived promptly for his usual 6 a.m. tee time at Van Cortlandt golf course in the Bronx.

Last Tuesday, Dingle was scheduled to attend a conference on the 106th floor in the Windows of the World restaurant in the North Tower; he’d only started his job--as a sales executive for Encompys Inc., a financial software firm--in July. Before he left home, he made sure his son, Jassiem, 9, was ready for school as his wife Nichole Dingle, also 32, tended to 3-year-old daughter Nia. He walked out at 6:45, Nichole said, eager to be on time for the 8 a.m. conference.

Nichole was told that after the explosion, someone from Encompys managed to reach Jeffrey on his cell phone. “They’re moving us to a safe place,” he said. Then the call was cut off. She has given officials her husband’s toothbrush and razor for DNA testing.

During an interview, Nichole pulled out Jeffrey’s golf clubs from a closet in the high-rise Bronx apartment into which the family moved last month. She had been excited about taking up golf, she said, after her husband’s repeated attempts to interest her in the sport. They were planning on shopping for her golf clubs in the coming days. Jeffrey had already purchased clubs for Jassiem and a colorful play set for Nia.

“This was going to be a big new start for us,” said Nichole, who started her new job as a pediatrician at St. Barnabas Hospital in the Bronx in July. “We were very excited about the future. Jeffrey took Jassiem to his new school the day after Labor Day and four days later to his first soccer match. Nia is about to start dance classes. And Jeffrey wanted me to play golf.”

As she spoke, Nichole cradled Nia on her lap. Jassiem, quietly, pensively, sat across the dining room table, his head bowed. He knows what’s going on. His name, Nichole said, suits him well.

“Jassiem,” she said, “means to be strong.”