A golf ball found in the World Trade Center rubble became a symbol of incomprehensible loss

NEW YORK (AP) — I stood amid the rubble of the World Trade Center, passing buckets of debris down a line of volunteers and first responders. It was hours after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. A little white object poking out of the gray ash caught my attention.

Scuffed and dirty, it was unmistakably a golf ball. And in that moment, it represented an incomprehensible loss that would take years, if ever, to process.

A person whose name I do not remember, most likely never knew, told me to not throw it out. We understood the significance of finding something personal in the acres of pulverized concrete and twisted steel. I set it near a mound of shredded metal thought to be pieces of the planes that were flown into the two towers.

People worked tirelessly through those first chaotic hours, frantically digging through what became known as “the pile” for any signs of life. We stood side by side with fellow New Yorkers, digging, doing whatever we felt would help, occasionally stopping as shouts for silence pierced the whir of activity. Early optimism quickly gave way to despair.

So little was recognizable that it was a gut punch when you came across something that suggested an individual had worked here: a torn photo, a paper weight, a shoe. Each artifact that surfaced told a never-discoverable story about someone gone. Each object, no matter now anodyne, had become a piece of American history.

For me, an avid golfer at the time, the golf ball hit especially hard. I imagined it with other balls in a jar on a desk, each with a different corporate logo stamped on it. This ball represented a moment I liked to believe brought someone a modicum of joy — a closed deal, inclusion in a fun scramble, maybe that one shot that kept the person thinking that breaking 90 was possible.

For duffers, golf is a mostly frustrating game. Yet it’s also about aspiration, friendship and camaraderie. Those were things that, in those days, were sorely needed. And that's why finding a ball in the smoldering rubble still resonates 25 years later.

Howie Rumberg was the first Associated Press reporter on the scene at the World Trade Center after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Part of a recurring series, “American Objects,” marking the 250th anniversary of the United States. For more American objects, click here . For more stories on the anniversary, click here .