I sit and stare at the webpage we've created for him, positive that he can't be gone.

They were only married six months and a day, as of September 11.

He left his keys in the ignition of his car that morning, because he was coming back. He left the door to the house unlocked because he was coming home.

He's not coming home. In my heart I know this but this knowledge makes it hurt so much more.

And I know there are so many others not coming home, but my guy isn't them. He wasn't sick or old. He was fit and just turned 34 this July.

I was sitting in the last row of the packed church when I asked one of the groomsmen, now an usher, where the girls were. He hadn't seen me sneak in. He gestured for me to come out of the pew, and he walked me up the length of the aisle, and at the very first pew in front of the alter, he placed me in the row with the bridesmaids.

I looked over and saw the family and my friend to the right of the alter. The remaining groomsmen were to my left. And so we sat, eerily as we did just a little over six months ago, when they took their vows in a different church.

"'Till death do us part."

That's what I think of now, but in that church all I thought was that I must focus. I have to get through this. I have to be the strong one. To show them through my actions that we can get through this. We will all get through this.

I was startled, when out of the corner of my eye, I spotted one of the groomsman, the one who happened to have not been in the building that day. He was standing alone in a corner of the church and then suddenly, he was gone. I can't even imagine how he could have been there and then I wondered how many other memorials he has been to for the guys on his desk who were more brothers than co-workers.

There were seven priests officiating. The lead one, was the one who had married my friends and he had also buried the missing's father 13 years before.

I was good through the ceremony. I took deep breaths and I didn't look at the girls next to me. I focused on my friend, who clenched her way through the mass. At one point, she looked over at me and mouthed, "I found it" and I said "what?" "I found it," she said and then I understood. "Your focus?" I asked. "My focus," she mouthed and I smiled and nodded.

I had explained to her, when she began to understand the reality a week or so ago, that during the rough days, like this service, she would need to mentally go deep and find her focus. Like a small intangible ball it sits in your diaphragm and you must locate it and concentrate on it. It will center you and it will provide the strength to continue.

I maintained my compsoure throughout the ceremony. Through the speakers: his sister, his best man and his twin. I started to lose it when the best man had us stand up and applaud the massive teams of rescuers at Ground Zero and when he closed with, "He means two words to me now: My Hero."

The twin's speech was poignant and true. I cried a little at that, but remained composed.

But the end. At the end, the gospel singers who sang the wedding, sang two songs.

The gospel singers are a story to themselves. My friends attended this Baptist church in downtown Philadelphia every week for 5 months before their wedding to get them to agree to do their wedding with their choir. It was a special favor the choir did, because they liked them so much. My friends were thrilled.

After the ceremony, we all ran out of the Cathedral to take our photos at the park across the street. We were all assembled when the groom, looked behind him and saw the ladies leaving the church. He yelled to stop the photos and without a thought, he ran through traffic screaming to my friend, "Pumpkin! We have to thank the ladies!" He reached them and gave them huge bear hugs, thanking them for performing. We all laughed and the ladies were a twitter, swatting at him and telling him to go take his photos and get on with it - but they were so pleased that he had run back, just to thank them for the upteenth time.

At the service, the two lead ladies sang "Amazing Grace" like I have never heard, and then they mentioned this story, commenting that he had come downtown, to bring them uptown. For him, they said, they wanted to sing something special that they sing at their services to give comfort to their families.

They sang a gospel song, that I've heard once before at a Baptist funeral. In a Baptist Church, it is a rousing song. People jump up and clap and sign at the top of their lungs.

It's the song that I've wanted sung at my own funeral.

I don't know the name of it, but it sings about never walking alone and God providing you strength. And this time when I heard it, it broke my heart. I just started sobbing, as I looked at my friend's smiling face in my hand on the cover of the program.

Someone helped me out of the church, through a side aisle as I made a complete ass out of myself.

Crying to the point where you just can't breathe but you try to catch your breath. That kind of sobbing.

I tried to pull it together outside, but I lost it again when I saw all of the shore kids, out of their tie-die's and bathing suits and in suits and tie.

All I could manage to utter as explanation was, "the gospel singers...killed me..."

People tell me that he's in a better place, but I wonder how it could be better than being at home with his new wife whom he loved more than anything and a cigar in his mouth.

I can't understand how you can work through all of the difficulty of becoming a couple and taking that final step to put selfishness aside and join together as man and wife and have that taken away from you before your one-year anniversary.

And then I had a wedding last night. After all of this, four states later, I find myself attending a wedding alone.

The groom had gotten out of one of the collapsed buildings, as had several other attendees. Most of the attendee's in fact. Many had done what I did, go from memorial to the wedding. We all stood and smoked and drank and talked about one of us who should have been at the wedding, but is now gone also.

We talked about him. Remembered. One of our Waco, gone forever. Our first member of Waco is gone. We aren't even 30. This isn't how it's supposed to be.

And so here I lay, in my room, in my bed with the shades drawn and two packs of cigarettes, trying to figure out what has happened to this world and why so many people I know were taken away from me forever.

I just can't make sense of anything anymore. Particularly when I see the cover of People Magazine covered with photos of celebrities who have no clue, dolled up at telethon.

PS - Consider this: "More than 100 campuses participated in a nationwide Day of Action two weeks ago. But Todd Gitlin, New York University professor and once president of Students for a Democratic Society, now says "I have a disposition against massive retaliation, but I think nations have a right of self-defense. In the '60s, 'Make love, not war' was an appropriate message. Today much more complex things are going on.'" - TIME Magazine

previous next