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>>But 3,000 people died on Sept. 11, leaving a gaping hole in the lives of their children, parents, siblings and friends. Those of us who don't fall into those categories are not bereaved and, by pretending to be, we diminish the real pain of those who really feel it. <<

I can tell you one thing. September 11 was the worst thing that ever happened in my lifetime. I'm not a drippy , showy sentimentalist, and I know what this writer means.

But September 11 horrified me in a way I didn't imagine before. The thought that 3,000 Americans were slaughtered and that I and my family might well be next was not some pop phenomenon to me. I laughed at nothing for three weeks, and I laugh every day.

I grieved in a real way, not for some pop pseudo-celebrity, but for the fact that the largest wholesale murder of U.S. citizens in the history of our country had happened in my lifetime, and that the future was very uncertain.

I resent the hell out of this author's pompous, condescending presumption that those who were not directly related to those killed in the towers are not bereaved.

Who in the hell does he think he is?

Okay, maybe I focused on one phrase too much. But grief is not limited to family and friends who died at ground zero. That is DEAD wrong.

I resent the hell out of this author's pompous, condescending presumption that those who were not directly related to those killed in the towers are not bereaved.

I think you miss his point.