Friend Grief and 9/11

I had several friends who lived and worked in New York City that day, mostly high school classmates who worked in business. I reached out to them by phone and email and all were safe, though traumatized. But I forgot about one. Three days later, I was waiting for my husband to meet me for an interfaith service at Holy Name Cathedral in Chicago, when my phone rang. It was another classmate of mine telling me that the classmate I'd forgotten about, who worked on the 86th floor of the South Tower, was missing. By then, we already knew what 'missing' meant. I found out quickly that thee was a hierarchy of grief in the 9/11 community: families first, then first responders. No one else was considered important: certainly not friends and not even survivors. And I felt that the friends left behind deserved to have their grief honored.