You are one good writer. Have enjoyed reading your stuff.

Tom

Tom - you have a gift for understatement ;-)

Gerard, thank you...I cannot find words to express how deeply you touch my heart. Bless you, and bless Simon's family.

I went to the movie "Ladder 49" the other night,
and it is a show that shows the courage and caring of the firemen in America. The love, the losses, the laughs and the pain are shown.

As I sat there I started remembering the attack
on America and all the firemen in New York lost.

In one part of the movie a funeral is held for
a lost fireman and it was so powerful in the sense memories of the 300 funerals for the men
who lost their lives trying to help all they
could in the attack brought back so many times
people cried for their losses. I remembered Rudy Guliano trying to be at every funeral,
trying to be at all of them to give support and going to two and three in a day. It seems impossible that this is true, but it is. He and the president showed great courage and caring as well during a time when strength was needed to help America.

The sadness is still there in the people who,
although they may not have lost someone on that
day, still cared very much about the losses suffered. We need to remember because the growth
of people who have the courage to go after the
terrorists is needed at this time.

The courage, the caring, the giving of the firemans lives must never be forgotten either,
but I suspect we are taking their giving for granted, not rembering the fact they were going
up the stairs to help as the people were flooding the stairs going down.

Let's remember the losses, give them dignity
as you have, and let the world continue to know
their loss is important and we must stay on the
difficult road to war with the terrorists so
this does not happen in any country in the world.