The hairbrush

After 9/11 everyone wanted to give blood.

In Fairfield County, CT, the Red Cross held a blood drive the Sunday after the 9/11 attacks. People came from all over the region to donate. I was there to deal with media inquiries. I still had pneumonia and the folks from the local Red Cross chapter allowed me to rest in their chapter house about half a block from the blood drive site.

Alone in the house, I dozed off until I heard a woman in the foyer call out "Hello? Anyone here?" I answered her and came out from the front room to find a woman holding a hairbrush. She tried handing it to me.

I was still feverish and, having just emerged from a light sleep, I didn't know why she was here handing me a brush. I must have looked confused, for the woman proceeded to tell me that the hairbrush was her husband's. She'd been told to bring it to the Red Cross for entry into a DNA database. Still it wasn't computing, until...

It finally dawned on me that her husband was missing at the WTC site. I felt a chill run down my spine.

Thankfully, two chapter employees came in at that point, and redirected her to the family support site where volunteers would help her.

That's the moment it all became real for the first time.