by Ann Marie Dwyer

Created on: September 22, 2007   Last Updated: October 31, 2008

As I stood at the chain link fence that protected Ground Zero from looting and onlookers from danger, I felt the gravity of the Earth increase four fold. In slow motion, I sank to my knees, and my forehead came to rest on the cool aluminum of the fence.

My ears echoed a cacophony of sounds...Survivors reading names of the dead...The agony of a mother's cry...Hundreds of footfalls as harried survivors fled...A breath sucked in that could not escape the gaping mouth of an onlooker...The thunderous rumble of the dessicated buildings...Radio feedback and static as orders squawked from its overworked speaker...The barking of my friend's cadaver dog...Shrill musicality of "The Spirit of Louisiana"'s siren as it left Baton Rouge en route to Company 343...The roar of the Blue Angels, shy one fighter...A flag popping its canvas stripes straight in the wind...The eerie sound of "Taps" on a bagpipe...A twenty-one gun salute...A saber rattling as a Marine's salute settled...The silence of the dead.

Kneeling at that cold fence, tears silently slid down my face as the enormity of the gaping wound in the ground yawned from the exhaustion of seeing already more than one billion pounds of crumbled concrete, twisted steel, dust, paper, dried flowers and disassociated body parts trucked to the East River dock to be barged away. Acrid stenches of dust, diesel exhaust and the dead accosted my nostrils. My arms empathetically grew heavy feeling the weight that hundreds carried, sifting through the debris to piece together the solution to preventing this tragedy in the future.

The weight of my heart pulled toward the hole, inversely desolate to the Towers triumph. An overwhelming sadness made my soul want to slide into the grave and comfort the spirits, longing for rest. So many lives shattered in the blink of an eye. So many who chose to go on their own terms. So many goodbyes cached on cellular telephones and voice mails. So many more whose loved ones would never hear that last "Always know that I love you."

My fingers found the flag pinned patriotically to my chest. My mind's eye saw "Hawkeye Pierce" flip the comment, "Stirred, never shaken." Hope backfilled the void in my heart. American defiance stiffened my spine as I regained my feet, still clutching the little flag. Deep inside me, a voice cried, "I shall overcome." The deep resonant tone was filled with the tenor of the dead, the survivors and every person this land had touched.

So galvanized, we had become that day. In 53 tiny

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