In a Peanuts cartoon, Charlie Brown goes into his wind up on the pitcher's mound. In order to fortify his confidence he quotes scripture, "Thou shalt not be afraid of the terror by night, nor of the pestilence that walketh in darkness . . ."

In the next frame, WHAM! the ball comes zooming back from the batter, catapulting Charlie head over heels. Then in the last frame we see him lying face down on the ground with stars dancing around his head. He concludes, "But those line drives will kill you!"

This is not an easy world. Sometimes it is a very cruel world. Those line drives will kill you.

Many stories of courage and compassion have come out of the events of Sept. 11, 2001. Harry Ramos and Hong Zhu both worked for May Davis, a financial-services firm whose offices occupied the 87th flo…