…something good, courtesy Rod Dreher, who remembers poignant acts of kindness in the days following 9/11:

I remember going to a fire station in Brooklyn Heights, not far from where we lived at the time, to pay our respects to the surviving firefighters and the widows of those eight from the station who died. This was a day or two after 9/11. There we saw a young couple from the Heights walk up with a dish of baked ziti to give to the firefighters and the widows. The man’s eyes were bandaged. He explained to me that when the first tower collapsed, he was nearby, and the pulverized glass abraded his eyes. He was functionally blind. A perfect stranger took him by the arm and led him, step by step, across the Brooklyn Bridge, through the streets of the Heights, up the stairs to his apartment, and into his bed. And he never got the stranger’s name. He said that bringing food to the fire station was his way of paying back that good deed.

That kind of thing happened a lot. Also around that fire station, when they got back their truck that survived the crash, it was filthy and battered. A community of Jehovah’s Witnesses that live in the neighborhood came out with buckets and washcloths, and cleaned the truck, making it gleam again. Just thinking about that this morning brings tears to my eyes. Like I said, this kind of thing happened a lot in those days, in that place. I am privileged to have witnessed it.