NEW YORK —The cleanup at Ground Zero is complete after eight months of heroic labor, but the wound is far from healed.

As New York officials decide what to build on the gaping 16-acre hole in lower Manhattan where the World Trade Center stood, thousands who were touched directly by the violent events of Sept. 11 seek to fill the void left by the loss of loved ones. And all Americans struggle to make sense of the day that changed the way they view the world.

On May 30, at 10:29 a.m., the time the north tower collapsed, a solemn ceremony marked a new stage in the history of Ground Zero. A folded U.S. flag was carried silently on a stretcher by an honor guard of city police, firefighters and Port Authority officers from what they have come to call “the pit,” symbolizing the remains of the 1,092 victims who have not been recovered among the 2,823 individuals who died.

Then the last steel beam from what were once the tallest buildings in the world was trucked slowly away.

A tragic gravesite had now become, in the words of Franciscan Father Brian Jordan, a shrine to the office workers who were killed and the rescue workers who sacrificed their lives. A constant presence at Ground Zero, Father Jordan months ago blessed the steel beams that were found standing in the perfect shape of a cross amid the ruins.

There were no speeches, no closing prayers. The only sounds were a firehouse bell ringing out the code for a fallen firefighter, the skirl of Police Department bagpipes playing “America the Beautiful” and buglers sounding taps. After the site was empty, a crowd of thousands who ringed the area on a beautifully clear morning —not unlike that of Sept. 11 —began clapping and chanting “USA, USA.”

The removal of the last beam was particularly meaningful for Port Authority Police Officer Ed Smith, who helped build the World Trade Center as a young construction worker in 1969 and who cleared wreckage and searched for bodies after the terrorist attacks. “I've always told my kids they are Dad's buildings,” he said, “so besides losing friends, I've lost something I put my blood and sweat into.”

A Catholic Moment

The ceremony also marked the end of an extended Catholic moment in the city's history. The overwhelming majority of the 343 firefighters and 23 police officers who died Sept. 11 were Catholic. The site will remain a perpetual memorial to the faith founded on sacrifice and self-giving.

Father Robert Romano, chief police chaplain, was part of the honor guard that marched in the closing ceremony. He had spent countless hours at the site since day one, counseling the grieving and administering the sacraments, and celebrated Mass there every Sunday for rescue workers and families of the victims.

As Father Romano followed the stretcher in procession from the site, he felt “Ground Zero withdrawal.” The workers and the families had formed a tight community of faith, hope and friendship. “There was an incredible bond, and now we won't see one another as often,” said Father Romano, a pastor in Brooklyn. “There's a separation anxiety.”

He recalled a mother who was not Catholic who attended his early morning Mass every Sunday “to pray for her son. He was a police sergeant who was never found. She wanted to let him know that she was there and would never forget.”

The morning of the closing ceremony, Father Romano offered his final Mass at Ground Zero for fellow police officers and their families. He called the rescue efforts that turned sadly into recovery and cleanup efforts “one extended labor of love. Everybody gave of themselves totally and completely. Against incredible odds and hardships, they worked to bring our 23 officers home who heroically lost their lives. We all felt that those 23 families wanted us to bring them home.”

‘My priorities have definitely changed. Everything is family now.’

Firefighter Ed Murray, who worked the early days in the rescue effort, when hopes were high that some victims could be found alive, expressed similar sentiments. “We'd find small parts —a hand, a foot, fingers,” he said. “You'd feel incredibly sad at first, but you knew that you could bring another one home.”

Murray, part of a ladder company in Queens, attended most of the funeral Masses for the firefighters who perished. “It was important for me to be there, to stand with my brother firefighters and to be with the families. Sometimes I'd work a 24-hour shift at the fire house, put on my dress uniform, go to one or two funerals, catch some sleep, then go back to the firehouse.”

Changed Priorities

These days, Murray is spending more time with his wife, Donna, and their two daughters, ages 15 and 11. “My priorities have definitely changed. Everything is family now,” he said. “We were always close and this brought us even closer.”

Michael Sialiano, who retired as a lieutenant from the Fire Department last July, expressed the same view. “It changed all our lives spiritually, our attitudes, what's important, what's not important,” he said.

He lost six men from the Brooklyn company he headed. “Four of them I broke in personally,” he said sadly. On a Long Island golf course the morning of the attacks, he grabbed his retired fire helmet, drove to the Brooklyn fire house, then went to Ground Zero. He told his wife on the phone, “My men are down there. I have to go down and start digging.”

Deacon Jerome Dominguez, a Manhattan physician, lost his policeman son, also named Jerome. The 37-year-old Dominguez was engaged to be married last December.

“From what I've been told, my son was in the south building, and when there was a call for all to evacuate, he and his friends kept going up because there were people trapped,” Deacon Dominguez said. “He went up so high, he got to heaven. We are giving thanks to God that he fulfilled his life on earth. My goal in life now is to help people get to heaven.”

Two days before the Ground Zero closing, Father Romano celebrated 25 years as a priest. At Mass, he told congregants, “I've seen the goodness of God manifested to people in very strange and beautiful ways. I've seen people who took their faith for granted who are now so much stronger and closer to God. I've seen great good come out of this horrible evil, and I've come away renewed in my faith —faith in God, but also in people.”

Brian Caulfield writes from West Haven, Connecticut.