Tending The Wounds

By Jodie Morse; Richard Corliss; Amanda Ripley; Joel Stein; Josh Tyrangiel

Lessons in Grief

In moments of crisis, school administrators draw up action plans--snow-emergency routes, fire-safety drills and, most recently, school-shooting lockdowns. Last week Scott Feder, principal of Dutch Neck Elementary School in Princeton Junction, N.J., installed a three-part "grieving plan" to console a kindergartner whose father never came home from work Sept. 11. There was only one problem. Though the newspaper and other students reported the man had perished, the family was still holding out hope. The young girl had been told that "Daddy's going to be home very late."

No lesson plan could provide comfort for the thousands of New York schoolchildren who lost mothers and fathers in the World Trade Center attack. But teachers could not afford to be speechless when their grieving pupils returned to class. Some students needed surrogate parents, others just answers to the very questions vexing their teachers. Consequently, schools that in recent years have banished emotions and hugs as they have Bibles spent whole periods probing feelings. This swiftly became American history week, no matter what the syllabus said.

Vanessa Smith, the principal of Dorchester Elementary School in Woodcliff Lake, N.J., had a week to prepare her students for the return of a fifth-grader who lost her father. Dorchester's teachers set about making discussions of death as age appropriate as possible. Kindergartners talked about dogs and cats they've buried; older children wrote essays about what they would have done in a hijacked plane. All week long the school's students were eerily quiet; teachers must have missed a little rowdiness. "It was as if by being incredibly well behaved, good things would start to happen," says Smith. Their fatherless peer finally came back to school last Thursday to a roomful of rehearsed regrets. She told her classmates she was happy to be there because it was "Burger King day," when parents serve fast food for lunch.

Chaminade High School, an all-boys Catholic school in Mineola, N. Y., on Long Island, bore a bigger burden than most, losing 62 family members, friends and alumni in the tragedy. But its religious moorings gave teachers a language with which to talk about grief. Students prayed for the victims at the beginning of each class and in their Monday-afternoon prayer clubs. The optional lunchtime prayer service was standing-room only, with some lingering long afterward. But grieving students mostly huddled in private conversations with their teachers. At this sturdy school, where even adolescents with braces are called "Chaminade men," the Rev. James Williams, 32, begged them to cry. "If you're not touched by this," he instructed, "there is something wrong with you."

Williams also urged them to move forward. College night and sports games went on as planned. But as the days passed, teachers fielded some of the most difficult questions yet. Sons learned their fathers had been called up by the National Guard. Would they too be drafted? Would the SATs matter anymore? Senior Marc Munfakh, 17, talked with his teachers about why his parents wanted to change their Syrian last name to something all-American like Masters or Smith. And he also talked to God. "As high schoolers we've never really had big problems," says Munfakh, "so it's been difficult for me to know what to pray for." Now the words come easily. --By Jodie Morse

The Anxious Skies

The pilots are supposed to be the gritty guys on a commercial plane. Flight attendants, they're the chatty cart pushers, the cheerful aisle monitors, the butt of a dozen Saturday Night Live sketches staler than the pretzels on a transcontinental trip. It's the difference between The Right Stuff and Coffee, Tea or Me? But tragedy has a way of smashing cliches, and the folks who used to be called stewardesses and stewards have a new mission. Where once they quieted raucous infants, now they must assure passengers--those relative few who are still flying--of the safety of air travel. They must also try to convince themselves.

"It's probably safer now than it's ever been," says Scott Stephenson, an 18-year veteran with American Airlines, one of the two carriers hijacked during attacks on New York City and Washington. "But it's also more intense than it was before. We're told to let security know if we see the slightest thing that looks suspicious. I'm glad they're doing it, because people are still packing funky things like steak knives in their carry-on bags."

On Thursday, Stephenson, 39, was getting ready to leave his home in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., to catch a plane to Boston's Logan Airport, where several terrorists had begun their deadly missions on Sept. 11. His jet-setting career had turned grim, as evidenced by his colleagues' new insignias. Some were wearing badges with the names of all the cockpit and cabin crew who perished. Others had black bands placed over their wings. "We still do have people who are fearful and have taken time off. It's time to come back. They might even feel better being back. The rest of us are upset, but we don't want this to get the best of us. If we decide to leave our jobs, we don't want it to be on the terrorists' terms."

Fate has whacked the corps of flight attendants twice: first with the Sept. 11 murders, then with deep layoffs planned because of the dip in travel. American's flight attendants have been working without a contract for 2 1/2 years; just recently, they voted a new agreement into place. Some of those brave enough to stay at work will not be allowed to.

In these parlous days, they have become a hardy band of brothers and sisters--both at American and at United, which also had two flights hijacked. Now there's a quiet camaraderie of combat veterans when they see one another in airports: a nod, a faint smile. "You've got a nation mourning, but people are feeling good about being together and going to work," Stephenson says.

Lately, the passengers are muted--staying in their seats, keeping to themselves--and appreciative. "They say thank you," Stephenson notes. "They give you a pat on the shoulder, and tears well up in our eyes." When the plane lands safely, he sees a look of relief on their faces. They must recognize the grace and courage of workers they so long took for granted. They should also recognize the flight attendants' sense of humor--which is to say, a sense of proportion. "I was talking to other flight attendants," Stephenson says, "and one woman said, 'On my flight a passenger got a little snippy.' So things could soon be back to normal: people being their rude selves." --By Richard Corliss. Reported by Jeffrey Ressner

A Crisis of Faith

On the Sunday evening following the terrorist attacks, in an old stone church 15 miles north of Manhattan, the Rev. Gregory Keosaian contemplated leaving the ministry. He had been ordained 28 years ago to the day, but he had never seen so much misery, so much fury in the faces of his congregation, as he had at that morning's service. More than 200 people looked up at him from the pews, double the normal draw at the Huguenot Memorial Church in Pelham, N.Y. Many had never come before. "I should have scrapped my prepared sermon--that I had labored on for hours, trying desperately to get every sentence right," he says. "I should have said, 'I am at as much of a loss as you are.' When I looked out and saw all those unfamiliar faces, I should have known I faced an impossible challenge."

Instead, Keosaian, 53, a cerebral man whose grandparents fled slaughter in Armenia to come to America, tried to make a nuanced argument for moving away from rage. He reminded his congregation that ultimate justice comes not from exacting revenge but from God. "Suppose--God forbid--that the perpetrators of this atrocity are not 'brought to justice'--at least not the justice we might want. Would that diminish the value of anyone who has died? Would God's ultimate justice in any way be impeded? Absolutely not!"

Keosaian failed utterly, he was told by several people after the sermon. Many of the worshippers that day were not ready to move past anger. They live, after all, in a close-knit suburb of 12,000 people where at least nine have never come home--including the close relatives of some members. They were craving faith, Keosaian says, but not all had the religious foundation to help them understand how God and calamity can coexist. One woman said, "Greg, we just wanted you to put your arms around us."

Keosaian, who had held five impromptu services since the disaster, and sat for 40 minutes comforting a man who saw people jump from the towers, found himself working through his own despair. "My feeling was that if I could be the cause of so much pain, I had no place in the ministry," he says. "I learned the hard way that the needs of people are so intense at a time like this, so different, that there is almost nothing you can say or do that can be right."

Keosaian heard similar stories from colleagues of different faiths, all of whom were experiencing moments of supreme inadequacy. He has since abandoned thoughts of retiring. For now, he has decided to focus on educating his congregation about Islam and helping the families who have lost loved ones. "I'm going to try very hard in the coming weeks to listen, to take a less formal approach," he says. This Sunday he will ask people sitting in the pews to split into small groups of three or four and share with one another small signs of God's goodness. --By Amanda Ripley

Nation on the Couch

People do not pay to talk to their therapists about how bad they feel for others. Even last week, after a 10-minute donation of sympathy for those who died in the attacks, most patients spent the remainder of their session talking about themselves.

A poll by the Pew Research Center showed that 7 out of 10 American adults felt depressed last week and a third had trouble sleeping. Few people canceled their therapy appointments, and old clients returned to their psychologists. "We've had our sense of safety and security profoundly shaken," says Dr. Donald B. Colson, a psychoanalyst in Kansas City. "That's even more of a problem when people have been previously severely traumatized in their lives." One of his clients, a Holocaust survivor, is suddenly having old nightmares again. Another, a boy who was badly bullied in an early grade, has his school phobia back. Many clients are having dreams about being kidnapped. "The initial reaction had an overwhelming degree of sadness in it," says Colson. "But the fear was there from the beginning and will be with us for a long time."

Fear often leads to anger, and that can lead couples who were already fighting to argue even more. When depressed and feeling isolated, people can lash out if they feel their spouses are not reacting in the same way as they are to the tragedy. "One individual stayed at home during the day and was exposed all day to the TV," says Dr. Daniel Blake, a psychologist in Detroit. "When her spouse came home and wanted to talk about the news, she didn't want to. It created a problem." But many couples appreciate each other more, with the attacks making their problems seem small. "If it was a solid marriage, certainly it will be better now," says Dr. Irene Deitch, a Staten Island psychotherapist and grief counselor. "But if it's fragile, I wonder." Some couples even decided to end their relationship last week. "In a couple of cases, people are re-evaluating their lives and saying this really doesn't work," says Dr. Holly Schwartztol, a psychologist in Miami. "I've told people not to make any major decisions this week."

For those without a spouse or a network of relationships, the stress can be even worse. But many are finding a closeness with family and friends they didn't know was there--fathers admitting past inadequacies, sisters setting aside old grievances, friends forgiving ancient transgressions. "One client said she never knew so many people cared about her, and she began to weep at the outpouring of love," says Deitch. "For her, the trauma turned out to be reassuring."

The therapists themselves--many of whom donated time to churches, temples, businesses, therapy websites and, in New York City, firehouses--had no escape from thinking about the emotional fallout. Deitch says she can't sleep much, and found herself driving the wrong way down a one-way road last week. "I'm walking around with one big knot in my gut," she says. "We're putting in a lot of overtime. We're fatiguing." But most therapists say they're lucky to have a job in which they can feel, even indirectly, that they are helping people. "There's such a sense of helplessness," says Schwartztol, "that when you're helping your clients, you're helping yourself." --By Joel Stein

Thrown a Curve

Prior to Sept. 11, baseball players were not generally known for their humility. But since the sport returned from its six-day mourning period last week, ballplayers have openly declared their own irrelevance, noting that anything they accomplish on manicured grass is meaningless in the current context.

For baseball managers these days, the task is to motivate their freshly humbled charges without seeming too eager about it. Larry Bowa, the first-year manager of the Philadelphia Phillies, would seem uniquely unqualified to handle such a situation. A 5-ft. 10-in. ex-shortstop of merely average ability, Bowa held on for 15 major league seasons by making baseball his obsession. In his role as manager, his trademark is ferocity; he chews out players who lose focus and paces so much during games that third baseman and frequent Bowa sparring partner Scott Rolen has said, "We need to get Bowa a seat belt. He's out of control."

On the Sunday before his Phillies resumed the season with a four-game series against the Atlanta Braves (the team they are chasing for first place in the National League East), Bowa says he asked himself, "How am I gonna do this?" "As a manager and coaching staff, your job all year is to push, push, push. You try to make players get better, motivate them, and if you have to get on somebody, you get on them. I made it a point that night that I can't do that."

The Phillies team is young. Most of the players have yet to go through a parent's death, let alone a national catastrophe. Bowa says he recognized that each player needed to deal with the novelty and gravity of the situation at his own pace. Having confirmed that players with New York City roots had accounted for all their relatives, he decided to sit back and let the teammates connect with one another. On Monday, before the first game with the Braves, Bowa gave a brief speech. "Guys," he said, "all I'm asking you to do is to go out there and do the best you can. Let the fans know that you're doing this to basically start the healing process."

Bowa says he does not remember the first half of the game. "To be honest with you, I looked up and it was the fifth inning. I was just like, 'What happened?'" He recalls being deeply moved by the pre-game ceremony, in which the U.S. Marine Corps color guard displayed the flag, and by the spirit of the 33,290 fans who showed up, rooted for the home team and lustily booed the opposition (a good sign that normality is returning to Philadelphia). In the sixth inning, Rolen hit his second home run of the game off Braves ace Greg Maddux. When Rolen came back to the dugout, Bowa insisted that he give the fans a curtain call. "Scotty's the kinda guy that doesn't like to show up the other team. But the fans wouldn't sit down, the flags were waving, and I said, 'Scotty, this is a special moment in time, and you gotta go out there and acknowledge that. It's not just for Philadelphia. It's for the world.'"

Back in the clubhouse, the Phillies celebrated their 5-2 victory with scattered high fives and muted congratulations. Two weeks ago, there would have been loud music and laughter echoing off the concrete walls. Normal still seemed a long way off. "Usually after a game, SportsCenter is on the clubhouse TV," says Bowa. "Now it's CNN." --By Josh Tyrangiel

Dating After Doomsday

There are people in New York City--good people, people in pain--who have used the past few weeks as an opportunity to put the passion back in compassion. They meet at bars or coffeehouses or on the street. They talk about their experiences in an unheralded time. Then, sometimes, they go off to the privacy of their apartments and...

In good times New York is not actually a Sex and the City episode. Mostly, singles look at each other across crowded rooms and sit in frozen wonder at the presumed conversational chasm between them. But with tragedy as a common bond, "What to Talk About" has not been a problem. "I was struck by how easily we could just jump into a conversation," says Allison Brown, 34, a lawyer who chatted up a stranger in a cafe the day after the disaster. "We started talking, and it was only about what had happened, but it was in the context of our personal lives." That night Brown ended up kissing her new friend on a Manhattan stoop. She admits to some lingering guilt over feeling good at a time when people were feeling so bad (enough guilt, in fact, that Brown and others quoted in this article requested pseudonyms). Still, she says, "it was affirming. And I'm really thankful that it happened."

There's no way to know just how widespread the trauma-into-passion phenomenon is. But names for it, at least, are proliferating. "Apocalypse sex" is what Jeff Sonios calls his encounter with a woman he met at the Lakeside Lounge, an East Village bar that was hopping in the days after the disaster. Lindsay Oktay, a U.N. conflict-resolution expert who has weathered crises in Angola, Kenya and now Manhattan, prefers "Armageddon sex."

"It answers that deep need, emotional and physical, to be as close as you possibly can to somebody," she says. Mark McPhee, 31, had what he termed a disaster tryst with a woman he met on the subway. "Pretty much all we talked about was the World Trade Center and how glad we were to be alive," says McPhee.

New York bartenders can see the need for contact in their customers' eyes. "We've been so over-the-top busy that it's hard to always know exactly what's going on," says Dawn Darcy, a bartender at the Gate in Brooklyn. "But because of this shared experience, people here are far more apt to talk to strangers. I don't know if it's always sex related...but if it is, that's beautiful." Elliot Bloom went home with a woman he met at 2A, a bar in Greenwich Village; he is not so sure it was beautiful. "People died," he says. "I have guilt about it. But I'd rather feel guilty and miserable with somebody else than all alone." --By Josh Tyrangiel

The Loyal Opposition

United we stand: That is the mantra, the logo, the declaration of codependency for the new Fortress America. How, then, must someone feel who stands apart, in opposition to the nation's righteous war fever? Ask Catherine Herdlick, a graduate student at Parsons School of Design, who helped carry a banner reading PEACE NOT WAR last Thursday in Manhattan's Union Square. Ask the 500 or so demonstrators who convened there a day later before marching north to Times Square. They are the first peaceniks of the 21st century.

"I'm here with other students to stress the importance of peaceful justice," says Herdlick, 23, "through due process of law, through international courts rather than war." A native of St. Louis, Mo., and a Wesleyan graduate, Herdlick has protested before. "Last year we had a week against the Taliban and in support of Afghan women," she says. Her parents are Republicans, and they have agreed to differ with their daughter. "My mom said she can understand why people want to blow up a lot of people," Herdlick says, "but I think the best way to honor the lives that have been lost is to prevent the same happening to other people."

Nancy Tingley, an art historian in her 40s from Woodacre, Calif., and a veteran of Berkeley politics in the '60s and '70s, joined her daughter Jessie Hock, 17, a Barnard freshman, at a Friday convocation. Hock felt "stupor and disbelief" at the attack, she says, "but I don't think declaring a war on terrorism or on any country that the government deems terrorist is the right answer. I don't have a perfect answer, but I don't think this is the right one." She and her daughter believe the country is emotionally vulnerable to politicking in the guise of patriotism. "People are so upset, so much in mourning," says Hock, "that in a sense they're being taken advantage of by the government."

"I am opposed to testosterone overruling thought," says Ken Gale, whose long graying hair and beard give him the look of a fortyish hippie. His sign reads DON'T CREATE MORE TERRORISTS. "As a New Yorker, I'm on the front lines. And if this breeds more terrorists down the line, it means I'm going to be the victim."

At a time when President Bush's approval ratings threaten to exceed 100%, some pacifists believe they represent a growing minority that is, for the moment, reluctant to speak out. But the protesters will not remain silent. And they will not be seen as un-American. "I don't feel unpatriotic," says Herdlick, laughing as she adds, "I really do like the United States." --By Richard Corliss. Reported by Benjamin Nugent

TIME.com To see more images of how people are coping after the attack, go to time.com/photoessays

With reporting by Jeffrey Ressner;, Benjamin Nugent