Thank You For Saving Everyone

The New York Times, September 23rd, 2001. 343 firefighters, 60 police officers and 8 paramedics died at Ground Zero.   

For weeks and perhaps months after 9/11, the streetside walls of practically every firehouse in Manhattan were covered with cards and letters, many of them written by children. You could walk from Ground Zero well up the length of the island and see them. In many cases the flutter of pinned up notes surrounded photographs of the fallen firefighters from that particular company.

The one I will always remember was the card with a drawing of the Trade Center Towers on each side. In between was a heart. Underneath was a message written in a child's hand:

Thank You For Saving Everyone

It is a tragic fact that some of these fallen heroes and heroines physically rescued no one. The leading group that went up the stairs of the second tower to be hit (the first tower to fall) all perished before they could lead any one out. Two made it up to the 78th floor elevator waiting area where the second plane had plowed directly through a crowd. There they reported back on what they saw and comforted the shocked, injured and dying in the few minutes they all had left.

They all died. But if anyone is ever redeemed by the sacrifice or kindness of another, those above words may have been, at least partially, true.

Re-posted from Save Versus All Wands.