The Charleston Gazette

I was in Washington, lingering in that immortally perfect fall weather as I walked to work. A friend from Boston called my cell to tell me "not to go near anything." Then I saw that half the people I passed didn’t know, and were blithely planning dinners and video rentals. The other half had blanks for eyes. Two blocks later, I hit a store window with a television, just beginning to replay the image that would never go away.

Everyone has… more

When her grandson was born, Wilma Ullum was overjoyed. The Davisville grandmother loaded up on toys, clothes and plenty of diapers. She baby-sat, sometimes for days at a time, while her daughter looked for a job and got settled in Morgantown. But later, when she decided to surprise her family for her grandson's second birthday, it was Ms. Ullum who got the shock.

"My grandson was so skinny you could count his ribs," remembers Ullum, "he wouldn't smile, wouldn't talk. He'd… more