JOSEPH N. BELL -- The Bell Curve

For much of my life, I considered funerals a barbaric rite, useful

mainly as a means of supporting various entrepreneurs who commercialized

death. Evelyn Waugh’s “The Loved Ones” was my textbook on this subject.

Then I got older and -- in some areas, at least -- a mite wiser. In

paying last respects to a growing number of friends, I took another look

at the process by which we pass along our loved ones from this life to

the mystery that awaits. And I slowly accepted two points about that

process. First, a funeral is for the benefit of the living, not the dead,

who are beyond caring. And, second, it provides a transition -- a kind of

breathing space -- for the living between the shock of the death of a

loved one to whatever life can be made by the survivors beyond.

And so it occurs to me that we all attended a national funeral over

this past weekend. There was an open casket of twisted steel and powdered

concrete on display on television throughout the weekend: the corpse of

security as we have known it since Pearl Harbor. And there were 5,000

members of our national family buried beneath that steel and concrete.

And so we grieved, privately and in a multitude of services throughout

the land.

But there is also an aftermath of funerals. We come home, surrounded

by friends and family who have brought a cornucopia of food and drink to

our house. And we stand about and eat and drink and talk, mostly about

the way it was. We tell funny stories, loving stories, and hug a lot and

slowly drift off into the twilight, into our own homes, with our own

memories. And for a few hours, the edge of death is softened enough to

allow the beginnings of a transition into a different life within the

parameters of the same life. There is no lessening of grief; the loved

one isn’t there. But at best, the first faint stirring appears that it

might be possible -- just might be -- to one day begin to rebuild

something.

The transition that followed the services in the United States last

weekend has begun. Baseball is being played again. The stock market --

for better or worse -- is up and running. Airplanes are flying. Bits and

pieces of laughter are being heard. And we’ve turned, a little tenuously,

to some of the activities that made up our lives.

My regular poker game took place as scheduled Friday. We talked about

the events of the week, but we also drew to inside straights -- and

exulted if we got them. New York Mayor Giuliani, when asked Sunday what

those of us in the rest of the country could do to help his city, said:

“Come to New York. Go to our theaters. Eat in our restaurants. That would

help more than anything else.”

And so we begin to feel our way. We search in our garage for the flag

we put away three years ago -- or was it five? We watch television more

than we should and read the newspapers and magazines we’ve learned to

trust, finding more life and detail there than in all the hours of TV.

Last night, I turned off the television, put on a Mozart symphony and

actually gave it my full attention. And we think a lot.

I can’t help contrasting the transition that is taking place today to

the one that happened 60 years ago. There was solid ground on the other

side of that transition bridge then, offering firm things we could do.

There were planes and tanks to be manufactured and pilots and GIs to man

them. And behind that force, every citizen had a specific and useful

role.

Now we have smoke and haze and quicksand beyond the transition bridge.

Nothing is clear. We worry, properly, about getting into the quagmire of

another Vietnam. About emulating the monsters who have murdered our

family. About acting from either of the two places certain to be

counterproductive: outrage and despair. About whether a people accustomed

since Pearl Harbor to quick fixes can find the patience and forbearance

for what might be a long and frustrating campaign ahead.

And, after those of us so inclined seek help from God, we turn to the

one human element that seems to offer firm ground: a blessed and

expansive national unity. We see New York hipsters lining the streets to

hold up signs of love and encouragement for the drivers of the endless

line of trucks hauling out debris. We watch the coming together of our

elected officials in a common determination to find the best course of

action. We hear remarkable stories of bravery and selflessness by the

firefighters and police and all sorts of people trapped in the burning

buildings.

Because that unity is our refuge and strength, when the firm ground on

which it stands begins to show signs of cracking, we worry. When we hear

about the local primitives who terrorized a Newport Beach family with an

Arabic-sounding name with a series of threatening phone calls, we worry.

When we see a sign in a nearby frontyard that curses Afghanistan, we

worry.

And when Jerry Falwell says on television, with the firm backing of

Pat Robertson: “I really believe that the pagans and the abortionists and

the feminists and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to

make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU and People for the American

Way -- I point my finger in their face and say, ‘You helped this

happen,”’ then we really worry.

When we start using this national tragedy as a platform, co-opting

God’s name in the process, to blame other Americans we fear and hate,

then Osama bin Laden has won, no matter what happens to him.

* JOSEPH N. BELL is a resident of Santa Ana Heights. His column

appears Thursdays.