In warming rays, the sun rose over Brooklyn, its golden beams reflecting off the high-rises of Lower Manhattan.
There is always something hopeful about a sunrise. It's optimistic, bright, bringing light after the darkness of night.
Sunday morning, those hopeful rays helped light up the hearts of those who came to Ground Zero, to Broadway Ave, Vesey St, Church St, — anywhere as close as they could get to the police lines.
Beyond that blue wall of New York's finest, dignitaries, the President, the former President, the Mayor and those who lost nearest and dearest were gathered.
President Barack Obama, quoting Psalm 46, invoked the presence of God as an inspiration to endure. "Therefore, we will not fear, even though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea."
The site was completely changed from previous September 11 anniversaries. Along with the names in bronze, there were two man-made waterfalls where the towers once stood. Dozens of white oak trees competed for sunlight with surrounding skyscrapers.
For the tens of thousands who gathered to remember, congregating at subway entrances, intersections, anywhere close to the 32-acre site of Ground Zero, they wanted to be here, to pause, to cry and to hope.
Some carried enlarged laminated printouts of friends and colleagues lost in the twin towers.
Others wore T-shirts remembering firemen, fire trucks.
Mourners
"We will never forget. Lt Joe Guillickson, FDNY" one read.
"Squad A," read another, showing the names of 10 firefighters who answered the 911 call on 9/11.
A father with tears in his years wore a shirt for Philip T. Hayes Pumper 217.
Four South Asians carried carnations for Suresh Shah.
A family cried quietly for a New York city tax inspector — one of the few times anyone would weep for a taxman.
There were police from Chicago, firefighters from Belgium, the occasional military serviceman in fatigues — always with a wife or girlfriend on one arm.
Through these concrete canyons that is Manhattan, the strains of the Star Spangled Banner floated, bringing silence to the streets.
In the harbour, the USS New York — its bow built from steel recovered from the twin towers — turned toward Ground Zero, in steely resolve that the attacks of 10 years ago would never be repeated.
Detectives, their loose-fitting suit coats bulging at the rear from holstered guns and handcuff cases, mingled on the streets with the mourners, the tourists and the curious.
New York State Troopers, in grey uniforms and beige cavalry hats and more used to handing out speeding tickets on highways, patrolled these unfamiliar streets on foot.
On roofs, blue fatigued sharpshooters trained their sniper scopes on those gathered below.
On a big screen behind and beamed live from Ground Zero a block away, families touched granite slabs in the footsteps of the two towers, longing for fathers and mothers, sons and daughters that never came home.
Young black men handed out free Stars and Stripes to ensure that the US flag would be waved proudly. Most took them, but some turned them into the nearest McDonald's trash cans.
Inside the security cordon, the voices of the dignitaries uttered words and hope, never forgetting.
Outside the cordon, the curious captured the moment on cellphones and cameras.
A Vietnam veteran, in a loose-fitting uniform of the first war that American lost, walked south on Broadway. Bearded bikers in leather waistcoats walked north.
Fresh-faced teens in neat polo shirts from a Baptist church handed out leaflets with the Marine Corps logo and filled with Bible preachings.
A muscular middle-aged man pushed a child's stroller north — he wore a T-shirt reading "82nd Airborne, Fort Bragg, NC." He didn't take the Baptist leaflet — he had the look of knowing first hand what it's like to serve and to never forget.
For all of the ceremony, New Yorkers went about their business — just as they did this morning 10 years ago before the world changed forever.
And all the while the names of the dead echoed through these glass and concrete canyons.
One by one they were read.
Names like Philip T. Hayes.
Suresh Shah.
Joe Guillickson.
So many.
Such a long time to read painfully one by one.
And it all seemed to happen such a long time ago. But it feels like yesterday for so many.
For the rest, they can say they were here 10 years to the day — with the images and flags to prove it.
