Found and lost

But when the headstone salesman arrived to meet me, he drove up fast in a sleek new sports car with a vanity license plate that read PLAYTIME. As I gave him a haggard widow's smile to cover up my disgust, I knew that I wouldn't be doing business with him. His marker repelled me; I wouldn't give him the details of mine. I would wait. But, as strong as I felt about the legitimacy of my delay, I did wonder whether I'd been sabotaging this task that marks the official end -- for me, at least -- of this sad era.

Still, for all my stress and equivocating, I believed I understood how lucky I was to have this choice. I thought I understood what distinguished me -- with Eddie's body uptown -- from those families with little or nothing of their loved ones around whom they might perform these rituals. It was up to me what Eddie's monument would be and who would make it; the other families couldn't determine exactly how their grave site -- ground zero -- might be transformed. By that time, members of the general public had submitted 19,000 plans for ground zero to the Lower Manhattan Development Corp.

But last week, I was suddenly kicked out of the winner's circle. Just like that. The medical examiner provided me with information that was different, and more accurate, than what I had earlier. It turned out that I never had control of Eddie's body -- just his head, upper torso and left arm. His right arm and hand were at Memorial Park, in one of the refrigerated trailers that contain all the remains of 9/11 victims that have yet to be released to the families. In total, I had accounted for only about 40 percent of Eddie's body.

As I sat in the medical examiner's office, I tried to understand it all, all over again. Although the worker sitting in front of me was prepared to tell me anything I wanted to know about Eddie, it all depended upon how prepared I was to receive these many awful truths. She sat with a file turned away from me, to shield me from seeing anything I didn't want to see. This included a manila envelope with postmortem pictures of Eddie.

As we talked about the cold science of Eddie's body, actual percentages and other grim details, I saw tears in her eyes for just a moment. It's strange to see a professional lose the composure. It is the grieving widow who's expected to break down, not the person in the crisp white coat. But these tears, from the least likely people, clarify the tragedy for me more than anything else. Even if I am too numb to feel my own pain, I see its reflection -- and its enormity -- in these encounters.

Now I have joined the other families in their efforts to have a say about the future of ground zero. This is the new task that helps reorder my new chaos. I know that, in the competing voices, there will be some that belong to people who own shiny cars with cheesy vanity plates. But I am equally certain that some will belong to other people who just can't get through the days without crying, just like me.

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