I’ve lost my sense of humor. It’s buried in the smoldering ashes of the World Trade Center and the broken rubble of the Pentagon. Lying next to sorrow and pain.

I worry that my laughter will stay at Ground Zero, like so much of the happiness that ended that day. For families of the victims, there may never be anything funny about life again. For the rest of America, we’ll be changed, but we’ll try to regain normalcy in our lives. Try to put some sense into why it happened. And hope for a brighter future. We’ll giggle with our kids, joke with co-workers and see the brighter side of life in the days ahead. We’ll deal with Sept. 11 in our own way.

In the days that have followed, I have tried to focus on the positive. The stories of everyday heroes, down in the trenches, who have faced the battle scene. Their heroic efforts in the face of ugliness has been uplifting.

The other bright side has been the tales of near misses. The people who were in the wrong place at the right time. Like the person who had been caught in the nightmare of New York traffic, only to find out later that her lateness to work was a dream come true. Or, the story of the minister’s son. He had to cancel a meeting on the upper floor of the Trade Center. A business partner’s illness was a terrible inconvenience, until the infamous moment proved otherwise.

For my family, the near misses hit close to home. Our niece, a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Air Force, was across the river from the Pentagon when that plane hit. On another day, the story would have been different.

Then there was the tearful call from our daughter. Her dear friend is an American Airlines flight attendant out of Dulles. She had tried to switch her schedule to Flight 11 and failed. Today this stewardess hugs her two children and weeps for her friends in the fateful crew who never will.

Near misses. Second chances at life. Something that most of us have experienced. Just not on Sept. 11.

For us, our time to meet God hasn’t arrived yet. But when it does, the last thing we want to have happen on our heavenly journey into eternity, is a near miss. Because, there won’t be anything funny about that.