Grief’s algorithm

On Sept. 13, along with a Hadassah group, my wife and I visited the National September 11 Memorial at the World Trade Center site (“The algorithm of grief – September 11, 5772,” Sept. 14). As we somberly perused the names cut into the metal surrounding the two square pools that are located on the exact footprints of the two towers, we spotted the name Laurence Polatsch.

My wife and I never met Laurence in life. The connection comes through our daughter – they were not close friends but they went through our public school system together, starting in kindergarten.

Fifteen of us stood at the memorial and said kaddish for this young man that none of us had ever met. There was sadness for a young life cut short that probably never will fully fade. The algorithm of grief, however, will allow us to move forward even though, as Joanne Palmer said, “there are some calamities that we cannot make better.”

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I hope that 5773 will bring some comfort to Laurence’s parents and family, and to the parents and family of the thousands of others who were so senselessly taken during the “hell that was September 11, 2001.”