Although we do not live in the United States, we have a precious daughter and son-in-law, both American citizens, who are located about half an hour north of Manhattan and used to live and work a few short blocks from the WTC. They make frequent trips into the city, so it was with a great sense of relief and thankfulness to hear that they had stayed home on Tuesday.

We hurried to assure them that, here in Canada, the grief and shock was in evidence everywhere. Canadians in unprecedented numbers were giving blood, sending messages, looking after the stranded airline passengers and doing whatever they could to help our American neighbours. We cried when we arrived home on Wednesday to find a number of messages on our answer machine, all expressing deep concern over thewhereabouts and situation of our New York family. It was gratifying to know how many people cared.

We have followed the story almost non stop since we heard about the first tower tragedy on our car radio. We can only hope and pray that this tragic event does not precipate all out war. Both of us lived through WW2 and will never forget the horror, dread and uncertainty of those years. God give the leaders of the American Government and the American people wisdom, rationality and the steadiness of calm and patience needed to see the country through this terrible period of history.

God bless America.

What has changed in our lives since last September? The major change is that our daughter and son-in-law, who used to be a day away by car from us, gave up on the New York area and relocated to Colorado in December, two time zones (and what feels to us as good as light years) away. Job loss and acute depression over 9/11 were the reasons. They were dismayed to find that overwhelming sympathy for the plight of Manhattan seemed to be sadly lacking in their new state. Seems it all happened too far away for those farther south to feel the shock with quite the same intensity. Our daughter noted there was far more reaction from those of us close to the border in Canada. When we talked to friends and neighbours here after 9/11, there was scarcely anyone who did not have a friend or relative living or working in Manhattan.

We were impressed by the speed and efficiency with which the Ground Zero situation was handled. Now we are waiting to see what will be done with the site. It is natural for the owners of such valuable real estate to wish to reconstruct as quickly as possible. However, here is a chance to do something really great in the form of a memorial. Here is the chance for America to show how great she really is by erecting, rather than a commercial centre, a centre for international studies and co-operation. We feel it would be a more fitting memorial than a giant gravestone. We find many of the Americans we meet on our extensive world travels to be woefully ignorant about the rest of the world, even about their closest neighbours (who are also their closest friends) here in Canada. Americans need to look beyond their borders and try to gain some understanding of what is going on in the rest of the world. By saying this, we are not trying in any way to excuse what happened last September, it's just that Americans seem so surprised to hear how much they are hated in some parts of the globe. How much foreign news in depth appears in your media? How much do you know about us? Your current president has left us 'out of the loop' on more than one occasion.

As a nation, we may not be as openly demonstrative and emotional as our friends to the south. In fact, we are often called dull and boring (did you know some of the greatest comic writers and performers in Hollywood are Canadians?). But we are still here as friends and supporters of the US and we hope and pray that there will not ever be another September 11th. And we wish our daughter was still in New York.

God bless North America!