It was the thought of the couple gathering extreme courage together, holding hands as they leapt, leaving their workplace, their families, and their lives anonymously linked forever to this terrible day in history, that brought it all home. One can only feel such sorrow for total strangers, all in the family of mankind.

Nothing has come so close to us all. The Vietnam War, which entered our own personal living room so graphically and tragically every night over a 15 year period, realised 55,000 lost souls.

In a matter of hours, the eerie parallels stare you in the face. Grieving relatives with cell phones in long lines at hospitals and morgues; the bridges and highways out of New York silently full of only people, walking home, juxtaposed with all too common other media sights, mothers in Argentina looking for their families; long lines of refugees in various third world countries fleeing blank-faced and silent from their bombed out homes.

Our daughter's brother-in-law worked at the World Trade Center. He evacuated his building ten minutes before the second plane struck only to realise that so many of his friends and co-workers above the area of truncation were gone. He was one of the lucky ones, but even he could not go home to grieve; all public transportation cut off out of the city, his car, along with thousands of others, crushed.

Reports off investment website indicate that whole neighbourhoods where many of these finance and investment professionals lived are missing people: Mommies and Daddies that went to work Tuesday morning and just never came home. Yet, these investment centres, only slowed briefly, and between the tears and the anguish have continued to provide informative, professional global financial information. How you say, can they do this? Because they must.

It is not mercenary; above all and in spite of unspeakable tragedy, orderly calm financial markets must be maintained. The world community today is interdependent on each other. Major nations and their monetary systems have shown their support by assuring liquidity in the markets that are open, and expressing cooperation and support to the United States. The United States Federal Reserve also acted immediately to increase money supply, even to trucking in additional cash to banks.

For individual investors, selling in unstable times is not a good idea; rationality tends to fade to the background. Statements such as there is no rational reason for investors to sell off corporate American based upon a non-economic event such as a terrorist bombing" RabbittAnalytics, bring sound reasoning to the forefront. Corporate America will endure, and so will we.

Consider what will take place in the weeks and months ahead for all those survivors. After the terribly sad goodbyes are said, reality sets in.

Life must go on, money will be needed to buy essentials, food, diapers, transportation, and medicine. Children will go back to school. Those without partners must cope with a one-income family. Finances will need to be reviewed; insurance claims will need to be sorted out; employment must be resumed; a semblance of normality and structure will return.

Everyone will look to their families and community for the emotional and practical support that has always been provided in times of trouble. They will need their families and their community to help them bear this overwhelming burden.

Even here in Bermuda, we worry about some of our own. For all of us, reach out to your family. If you have been on the "outs", for whatever reason, use this time to mend fences, get back on the "ins" with your family. You need them and they need you. Do something for someone today, extra and unasked and unnoticed. Do this for your own soul.

More than ever before, we should be grateful and use this time for community building. If you have had hard thoughts and hard words about the way things are going, hold them back for now. This is not the time.

Let's take inspiration from the resilience of the citizens of New York, absolutely determined to carry on. Let's all pull together in this community of ours to make positive change. It is the only community we have, and dear readers, it.....is still intact!

Martha Harris Myron CPA CFP Email:marthamyronnorthrock.bm.

In line with the direct request from the Financial Planning Association of the United States Board of Directors, I am pleased to offer my financial planning support and assistance on a pro bono basis to those here in Bermuda, who may have been directly and tragically impacted by this event. Please send me a confidential e-mail describing your facts and circumstances to the address above.