At the support group, says Seier, they go through the same incomprehension each week: "I can't believe this happened, I can't believe that Jeff's gone, I can't believe that Billy's gone, I can't believe that Scott's gone ... We just can't believe it. I can't believe this has happened to me, I can't believe this has happened to Billy, I still think that I'll wake up in the morning and he'll be there."

In the weeks after Sept. 11, Penos channeled her grief into writing a booklet celebrating Jimmy's life. Although they didn't have a body, a service was held for him in December, and only afterward did the full reality begin to sink in. When Jimmy's remains were recovered in April, she says it was like a smack in the face. "All I wanted to do was crawl on top of that stretcher and fall asleep on top of the body bag," she says.

Kane encourages the women to recall the details of their relationships and the depth of their grief, partly to reaffirm the profound connections they had with the men. "The important thing is they don't begin to doubt the validity of their relationship or the intensity of it or the importance of it," says Kane. "In many ways they are the ones who knew and had a day-to-day involvement with the men who have died, and it's the parents or other relations involved who were not always in contact on a regular basis."

Tommy Casoria was buried on Aug. 10 after a service at St. Luke's church in a suburban stretch of Queens. Mayor Michael Bloomberg was there, as was his predecessor, Rudy Giuliani. Hundreds of firefighters lined the street as an engine bearing Tommy's casket inched along, followed by a trio of black limousines carrying his family. Lanzisero pulled up in a separate limo.

In his eulogy, Bloomberg noted that Tommy was a fan of the Blues Brothers; Tommy's brother recalled the private language they adopted from the characters in "Raging Bull" and "GoodFellas," and choked back tears. "We were like bookends," he said.

Lanzisero came up, if not by name, in the priest's comments, as he asked the mourners to think of Tommy's last few weeks, as he and his bride-to-be prepared to get married. "Don't you just wish someone would come up and shake you on the shoulder and say, 'Wake up, it's all just a bad dream'?" he asked.

Lanzisero says that something seemed to shift a bit that morning. The tension of living between the public trauma and the private grief lifted. Tommy will be in a place where she can go to be with him whenever she wants. And that morning, for the first time since Sept. 11, she hugged Tommy's father, though not his mother, and spoke to his brother. It was not much, she says, but it was something.

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