In memory of W. David Bauer

For the next few days, I am going to put aside my usual posting to try and memorialize a man I never met and whom I know little about. This effort is part of the 2,996 Project - a collaboration by 3,173 bloggers, (because there are more bloggers than fallen) each of whom has been assigned the name of one person who died on Sept. 11, 2001 in order that we might honor their memory.

This is a difficult assignment for several reasons. First, I want to make sure that I only focus on the person I have been assigned, Walter David Bauer, Jr., and not drift off into any kind of political grandstanding as I am wont to do, because that is not what this is about.

Second, those of us who did not lose a loved one on Sept. 11 also suffered a great loss, but it was a more general, psychic kind of pain.

Mr. Bauer's family lived through the real, sudden, crushing loss of someone who was a huge piece of their world, and I want to not mingle those two kinds of loss together, but to leave this space for this one special person's memory.

I will write more tomorrow. For now, please say a prayer or send out a good thought for Mr. Bauer and his family: his wife, Ginny, his children, David, Steve and Jackie; his sister, Gretchen; his parents Bobby and Heidi.