Grief. Anger. Fear. Disbelief. Shock. After the images, stories and information we’ve all learned over the last few days those words just don’t seem to have the power to convey the mixed emotions all of us are feeling these days. It feels as though the world we put to bed on Monday night will never awaken again. We now have a world that looks similar, though scarred, but it feels different.

No words can express how we all feel. Or what we don’t feel. The images we have seen over these last few days, the death, destruction, the fear, will never leave us. As our children grow, what we have seen will become a distant memory. Yet, we will never forget the moment we learned that an airplane hit the World Trade Center. And then another. Then the collapse. Then another. And the Pentagon.

It felt like a full-scale attack. One event after the other. It kept happening more destruction, more death. More pain.

There is no precedent for this attack on the American people. People have compared it to Pearl Harbor. To Oklahoma City. But those are only similarities. Those events were different. They had different circumstances.

The point here is that the people of America have been attacked. Not the government, not the Armed Forces, but the people. You. Me. Our children. Any one of us could have been in that building. The people who have died were doing no more than earning a living. Getting their morning coffee. They committed no crimes against the world. They made no contribution to America’s foreign policy. They did nothing more than hope they could make a living, feed a family, get home that evening to whatever sort of comfort they had.

The people on the planes were going home, on business trips or vacations. There were families on those planes. I’ve even heard that one plane had a group of elementary school students who had won a National Geographic trip. They were with their teachers. That morning their parents kissed them goodbye, felt the sharp tinge of pain thinking they were sending children off alone into the world. They were loosening the strings of protection. As those kids stepped onto the plane, that sadness was mixed with pride. “My child has achieved something. My child has done something good.” They are now mourning their children.

Why? For what reason?

The point is, the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon touches us all. Not because of the national significance, though there is that, but because of how close it comes.

How many people did you know? Did they get out? Even if you didn’t know someone, you know someone who does. Or someone who was close, or had a close call.

The sheer amount of human life that was lost may never dawn on us. One senseless death is difficult to deal with. Two, doubly so. 100? 600? 1000? 5000? It seems unfathomable.

But the dead and missing are beginning to get faces and stories. But they are only sketches, highlights, moments. Brief lists of accomplishments, family. It’s all we can handle. Only short stories, not full novels. Were we to know more, the complete destruction may be too much for us to handle.

But ask yourself this question. How many children are waking up without a parent? How many husbands and wives are going to bed alone? How many brothers and sisters out there are desperately searching the hospitals and crisis centers in New York and Washington for missing loved ones? How many are on their knees now, praying that there will be some miracle and those rescue workers will find their loved ones. How can they give up? They need to hope. Hope allows us all to survive.

There may be as many as 5000 dead. But there are millions wounded.