My office houses the mechanics for the campus bell. Twice this week we have watched someone come in, set the machine, and then wait while it slowly rings out 32 times. Once it was for a campus memorial, and then today for the nationwide moment of silence. It really hasn't sunk it that each one of those bell tolls symbolize a life. An entire life, an entire person, summed up and memorialized in a bell toll.

As one of the comments says, this is the most useful writing about the past week that I've read so far. Especially the part about journalists/politicians using the event for their own motivations.