'This Night Is About Caring for Everyone'

By Samuel Bruchey | STAFF WRITER

September 16, 2001

John Reilly held a candle in one hand and his daughter Katie's hand in the other Friday night as he thought about how wonderfully Tuesday morning began.

He recalled stepping out of his Garden City home and marveling with his wife, Maryanne, at a cloudless, azure sky. He delivered a social studies notebook to Katie, 8, at school, after she left it at home atop her bedroom desk.

It was only later, as he drove to his office in Garden City, that he switched on the radio and learned how two hijacked airplanes had slashed into the World Trade Center and changed everything for residents in this village.

"We need to pay respects to the people who have lost somebody in this tragedy," said Reilly, 38. "It's been so hard on this village."

So, Reilly and his daughter joined hundreds of other people in Hubbell Park to hold candles and pray for those who went to work inside the two towers Tuesday and never made it home.

Garden City - with 20,000 residents, many of whom work in Manhattan - lost much of itself in the wreckage of tangled steel, concrete and ash.

Twelve families have filed missing persons reports with the Garden City Police Department, Lt. Joseph Lennon said. But residents and village religious figures say dozens more have missing loved ones.

"We need you to help us stand, stand tall and stand firm," said the Rev. Lynn Sullivan of the Garden City Community Church. "We need you to help us as we remember these people that we've loved. Remember what they were to our community, to our neighbors."

Eileen Engelke, who helped organize the event, said she had been "paralyzed by the news."

"People needed this so badly," she said, "it virtually came together on its own."

Ani Robertson of Garden City said she had been glued to the television, sobbing for days. "The only comfort in a time like this is to come together and pray," she said. "I don't know anyone who's missing, but I feel as though I do."

Sandy Dyckman of Garden City Park said she had not lost a relative but wanted to let those who had know she's "thinking of them."

Most of the families who are still trying to locate missing relatives chose not to attend the vigil, said the Rev. Joe Schlafer of St. Joseph's Church.

"They don't want to be away from the telephone right now," he said.

Msgr. John Gilmartin of St. Anne's Church added that to many, attending the event might have symbolized a conclusion they are not ready to face.

Sullivan said, "We have so many feelings of anger and hate, redirect them so that we may stand firm in a community that shows love and togetherness."

Members of the Garden City High School choir stood inside the gazebo and sang songs, such as "America the Beautiful" and "God Bless America."

The compassion evoked during the ceremony was exemplified midway through the hourlong event when a woman who came alone lost consciousness and collapsed. With the vigil continuing uninterrupted, a clutch of strangers administered to her on the lawn until she could be taken to an ambulance.

"This night is about caring for everyone, whether your neighbor down the street or the person right beside you," Dyckman said.