We Gather Together

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Among families split and frayed by old fights and disappointments, people find that the attacks have provided an occasion to do what they wanted to do anyway. "There is something about the imminence of mortality that moves people to make peace if they can," says Frederic Luskin, a fellow at Stanford University in Palo Alto, Calif., who conducts forgiveness workshops around the country. "I've had a number of patients say to me, 'It's hard to take a grudge seriously when you look at the World Trade Center.'" The baby boomers, he notes, are "a psychologically savvy generation, and they realize that in order to grow you have to resolve some of the residual conflict left over from childhood."

When Molly Rudberg was eight, her parents divorced, leaving her with an ache for a father who was so often absent when she needed him most. "Many weekends were missed, as well as prom nights, homecoming dances, soccer games, evenings of homework or just simple advice," says the Chicago marketing strategist. "I finally threw in the towel when he couldn't make it to my older sister's high school graduation because he had to be overseas." Though father and daughter wound up living just four blocks apart, for years Molly couldn't bring herself to reach out. Soon after Sept. 11, however, they began meeting for breakfast every Tuesday. She knows the healing is going to take a long time. "Sept. 11 happened; and though many, many precious lives were lost that day, I have no doubt many lives were saved as well," she says. "It's emotionally draining, but it's worth it," she says of the reconciliation breakfasts.

Calamities may reinforce reflexes more than they work miracles. This crisis, says clinical psychologist Jeffrey Slutsky, "can serve as a catalyst for reconciliation if the people involved were already primed for it. But it takes more than even these traumatic events to change people's character." In fact, crisis may serve mainly to reveal character, for better or worse. Jeanne, an art director for a magazine in Northern California, was planning her March wedding in New Orleans; her fiance was a New York City stockbroker working one block from the Twin Towers. After the attacks, she expected him to hop the first plane, train or automobile to be with her. Instead he wanted to hunker down with his brother in Connecticut. "He's telling me he wants space. And I'm telling him I want him here with me. Watching all this unfold on TV, I never felt so alone and detached," she says. On Sept. 13, she broke off the engagement. "I want to be with someone who, if tragedy strikes, gets on a train instantly to be with me." So her wedding dress will just hang in her closet for a while. "I don't know what I'll do with it," she says. Her stunned fiance visited her for nine days in October, hoping to change her mind. She says she won't. "Life is too short to have continued the way I was going."