So I woke up this morning and had a lovely walk with my wife █████ to the Akropolis Meat Market on 30th Avenue to pick up a nine-pound cut of prime rib for Christmas dinner tomorrow. Then I escorted her to the train station so she could go to work. I bought a bottle of triple sec for my famous cosmopolitans and carried everything home. Where a pretty raw cry was waiting in my inbox to pop up and slap me. The subject was "Listen up":

FOR ONE THING UNLESS YOU HAVE A MISSING LOVED ONE FROM SEPT 11 YOUR OVER BLOWN STATEMENTS MEAN NOTHING....WE AS FAMILY MEMBERS HAVE TO FEEL THAT WE ARE DOING EVERYTHING WE CAN TO FIND OUR FAMILY....SO IF THAT MAKES YOUR LIFE ALITTLE HARDER......WELL WHO GIVES A FUCK!!!!!! MY HUBBY'S NAME WAS —— ———....REMMEBER THAT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Apparently she's responding to one of the two or three essays I've written about the experience of creating the survivor registry. I wrote back with a generic and unemotional expression of sympathy for her loss and a wish for the new year to bring comfort. What else could I do? I mean, her comments aren't fair exactly, but any distress I felt as a result of the 9/11 experience is certainly orders of magnitude less than what she's still feeling for the loss of a husband. But the thing is, we all lost something that day, and we all have a right to talk about it in public forums—her, me, you, and anyone else. I hope yelling at me made this poor woman feel better, but it almost certainly didn't.