Remembering in the aftermath of 911, whenever Enrique Iglesias' and Mariah Carey's Hero or Sarah McLaughlan's Angel played on the radio, tears would stream down my cheeks, even as I combed the unusually quiet streets of Manhattan as the city mourned its dead thousands.
Last night, when I saw the promo clip for this Sunday's charity show for the Great Sichuan Earthquake victims on Channel 8, a few fleeting frames of a heart-wrenching image made me sob almost uncontrollably. It was a picture of many school bags, which looked uncannily like mine when I was a primary schoolgirl, neatly laid on sandy floors of what must have once been a classroom or playground, now a mass tomb of thousands of young, bright students.I know these two places will forever hold a very special place in my heart. Seven years on, I am still planning a return to New York. Perhaps this winter, I'll visit Ground Zero once more. Or perhaps, I'll head for Chengdu, this time on an almost spiritual trip - perhaps I'll take the road less travelled to Tibet, perhaps I'll attempt to go as close as I can to the little towns where I had once been, but are now no more than dust and ashes.
