Families still search for any trace of remains to lay to rest

NEW YORK — Ralph Geidel cannot remember a time when he wasn’t obsessed with finding things that had been lost or discarded — forgotten marbles on the playground, old coins, false teeth and silver jewelry at the beach. And he was good at it.

This is why, on a warm, spring day, Geidel crouched on his knees on the roof of a lower Manhattan skyscraper, his face inches from a pile of gravel, looking for something precious.

Looking for traces of his brother, and others killed at the World Trade Center.

Gary Geidel was one of 11 members of an elite fire squad who died on Sept. 11, 2001. Not a granule of his remains has been identified, and nearly five years later, Ralph Geidel found himself on this roof, still searching.

He stopped suddenly, plucked a small, eggshell-colored object between his fingers and slipped his reading glasses onto his nose for a better look.

“Could be part of a vertebrae,” he thought. continued