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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The desk is standard office equipment--six drawers and room for a sprinkling of electronics. The simple phone sits alongside a plain black blotter. There’s a chair pushed close to the desk and another angled to the side, as if awaiting a casual visitor to sit down for a chat.

Propped on the desk is a program book that offers mute testimony to Barbara Keating’s devotion to her faith and spiritual community. She was killed when American Airlines Flight 11 crashed into the north tower of the World Trade Center.

For the last several years, the 72-year-old grandmother and mother of five grown children had been a vital presence at St. Theresa’s Catholic Church in Palm Springs. “She never wanted a public role,” said Msgr. Philip Behan, “but she was always the kind of person who would volunteer.”

Keating’s latest project was organizing parishioners and others to come together to study the Bible. The program was supposed to start in October. Now, others are trying to pick up the loose ends.

Keating swam, attended morning mass and drove a red Grand Am with the top down year-round. Retired and a widow, she also had worked with the Altar Society--the “ladies guild”--and assisted the nonprofit Catholic Charities group.

At Keating’s desk, the computer is turned off. But there are fresh flowers in a vase and a simple white candle is burning.