This is a 9-11 bike and it sits there locked to a rack 16 years after the fact. I wonder if anyone pays it any mind, does anyone know it even exist, other than myself. I wonder if the family of the victim remains in the area. Do they ever pass it by. 16 years ago, the owner of the bike rode it to the station and took the train to work , only to never return. He was no Fireman, or policeman, and based on the fact that he rode a bike to the station I surmise that he was an ordinary working man.. when I first came upon the bike I was caused to wonder who he was and I felt saddened by his passing. No less now than then. His name will be read in the ritualistic ceremony memorializing this day, but I shall not know it .
In the days immediately after the event, I recalled the cars remaining in the parking lots of commuter transit centers about this area. They remained for days and in some instances weeks waiting on the driver who would never return. I remember the photos that began to adorn poles and buildings in the area: Have Your Seen ?_____________, the plaintive and heartbreaking request, repeated hundreds if not thousands of times on posters about the area. The answer to the question was known without having to be asked.. My wife and I would see months and months of obituaries as remains were identified over months and months. It was the stuff that makes for depression. The obituaries invariably described a young person , survived by a spouse and perhaps children, siblings and friends , spoke of avocations and education and they literally appeared in the newspapers for months and months. It was so sad, ever so sad.
I was called by my church to set up chairs for a young man's funeral and repast to be held in the hall.
I was friends with his Uncle, he was 28 years old. He went on that fateful day to attend a breakfast seminar at the WTC, he did not work in the building, he did not even work in NYC. His funeral was
at the end of October, his body was not present as it has never been recovered. Yet it was thought that his funeral would allow his mother still in denial to accept his death, rather than think that every time there was a knock at the door or the phone rang that it would be her son. Her sadness is still sharp in my mind all this time later.
There are those among us who remember the words NEVER FORGET, how can we ? I will always remember the bike that has remained in place for 16 years. I wonder will it still be there next year.