In the days and weeks following September 11, I pleaded into my pillow, in the bathroom, while driving to the store: "God, please help them."

The "them" in my prayers rarely had a face. When I'd stop to think about that, I felt overwhelmed with a sadness that almost split me in half. There were too many people broken. Too many people gone. I was 150 miles from New York and much more from Washington, D.C.

What could I do? On the Internet I scoured pictures of the victims, trying to make a connection. God, these are only the A's, I kept thinking, scrolling through a list. Only the A's. The faces blurred through tears.

What could I do? What could I give? I'd think desperately, those September afternoons after getting home from work. I didn't want to cook dinner or plan my weekend. Thousands of people were dead. How dare I just up and move on?

One day I called the phone number the United Way kept publishing for the September 11 Fund. Yes, I'd given blood, and I'd given money, I told them. Maybe there was something else I could do, I asked. I had this idea, actually. Since I was a writer, I thought maybe I could find a way to send letters and cards to some of these people. Not just right now. For months, or even years. Just to let them know someone was thinking of them, even if they felt as if everyone had forgotten.

The United Way didn't know what to think of that idea. And they certainly didn't know how to connect some stranger with a victim's family members. The September 11 Fund was only a week old. "We'll look into it," they told me. I had a feeling they were just being nice.

I watched CNN specials and bought commemorative magazines. In one, I saw a map that traced the paths of the hijacked jets. United Airlines Flight 175 had passed just south of my city. One late autumn afternoon I drove to Somers, Connecticut. I pulled over on this winding country road near broad golden fields and looked up at the sky. I don't even know if the plane had flown over that place, but in my mind, I pretended. Who were you? What were you thinking that morning? I wondered. And then, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry we didn't do anything. I'm so sorry.

For days, weeks, months after, I'd check the TV for news of New York. Had the fires stopped smoking? Had they found more bodies? Were businesses reopening? Really, I was wondering in a dreading sort of way, how are they coping? But the news didn't show much of Ground Zero anymore. The awful hole, I suppose, had grown tiresome, gruesome, or a bit of both.

I decided I had to go there. If they weren't going to show it on TV anymore, I would get close. I would spend money. I visited at Christmas, and in January, March, May, June. I went with my husband, my friend; my parents, his parents. I watched the devastation recede. I saw memorials wither only to be replaced by fresher flowers, cards, and teddy bears. I saw some businesses reopen and others close -- the dust and smell disappear -- the church become a church again, not a respite for rescue workers.

I climbed the Empire State Building and looked downtown. I walked the Brooklyn Bridge and looked behind me. I rode on a boat past the Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island, and the hole in the sky.

I learned the streets and subway stops and how to walk fast. I learned New York. But still, every time, the question hung there, whispering.

What can I do?

The last time I visited Ground Zero, it was pouring. I pushed through crowds and umbrellas to stare, again, at a massive, empty hole in the ground. Truth doused me as I stood with strangers, squinting as always, to picture what the buildings looked like when they were there.

I wasn't going to see anything. There was nothing there to see, no one there I knew, and I would never truly understand.

A year has passed and all I cannot do is achingly clear. I can't gather every person that has had a loss into my arms. I can't blot out images burned in the mind or piece a life back together. I can't even tell people who are hurting how sorry I am, because even after all this time, they remain a shapeless, shadowy "them."

I am back where I started. When I think of them I will stop and offer a fierce prayer. I will pray to a God they may no longer trust or believe in. I'll pray for many things, but most I will pray that they will feel someone is still praying, and not forgetting, and loving them in a way that hurts.

This is all I can do.