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On November 15, 2001 I wrote and posted a remembrence of Jake Jagoda. He was a classmate of mine in high school that died in the attack on the World Trade Center. I didn't expect anyone else that knew him to read it, I just thought it was important to get my thoughts down, that remembering was important in and of itself.

The web is a funny place and e-mail reactions to the post trickled in over time, first a friend Jake had in college, then his sister, Mary, and then another friend.

All were touching. Mary's note in particular, it read,

I really enjoyed your story about my brother Jake. I'm sure that he was
thinking about fishing that morning. He actually spent September 10 on the Sound fishing. Your description of Jake was exactly how I picture him. He was a fisherman and unfortunately on September 11th he was a bondsman. It's nice to know other people remember Jake's love of
fishing.

Thanks for you story.

It was humbling. I immediately started typing a response, but struggled to find the right tone. I wanted to say something nice, something sympathetic, something human.

I stared at the screen for over an hour, but it wasn't there. I decided to give it some time, I'd close it out and write to her from home. When I got home from work I went through the same drill. I just couldn't find the words.

And then I procrastinated: I can't do it now I just had a beer, or I'm about to leave for this movie, or there's a baseball game on. I did a million different things - none of them really important. And then finally it got weird as procrastination gradually gave way to rationalization. Can you even respond to an e-mail a month or two later?

I wish I could have found out. I woke up on Wednesday morning to find that Mary's death was front page news in Newsday. Apparently she had gone kayaking and was missing for days before they found her body.

The news was numbing. How can any family be asked to bear so much? How can life be so fragile?

I'd like to send some kind of note to their parents. Something nice, something sympathetic, something human…if I can find the words…