Card writers grapple with own sorrow

For more than a decade, Alarie Tennille's prose has been in those Hallmark cards, often the ones that help the grieving find strength. But the 49-year-old woman herself doesn't feel so strong these days, and the words aren't coming so easily.

More than a week since terrorism touched America like never before, it's she who grieves.

"We are as wounded as most people in the country. It's overwhelming to try to write something to show sympathy and support when you're grieving yourself," she said as she struggled Thursday to craft Christmas cards, of all things.

Her mind wasn't in it.

"It's a little difficult to think of the jolly side of life at a time like that," she said.

For many of the faceless folks behind the cards for all occasions, it's been heartache at Hallmark since Tennille and her colleagues first huddled Sept. 11 around any available radio and television set in their Kansas City-based company and heard the horrific:

Terrorist strikes have toppled the World Trade Center's twin towers and damaged the Pentagon. A fourth hijacked plane has plowed into Pennsylvania earth. Thousands presumed dead.

'Nobody could work'

At Hallmark Cards Inc., editorial director Jamie Karson knows "we're in the emotion business." And on the job, where anonymous writers often corral their own raw feelings into cards to lift up others, there's been plenty of emotion to spare.

"It is hard to concentrate on work now," Karson said.

"Hallmark is a big company, thousands of employees," he said. "Nobody could work."

"It seemed like 'Independence Day' -- one of those ridiculous, violent movies," said Ingerlene Embry, a Hallmark editor for about a year. "But I had to keep watching and watching."

Managers told workers who felt they needed to be with their families to head home. Karson stayed a bit before honoring his wife's request to be with her. Tennille stayed glued to the TV.

"It was so horrible I couldn't even cry," added Embry, 27. She didn't crack until she drove home to her husband.

"I just started crying, crying and crying," she said. "I've been on the brink of tears for a week."

Days later, when she thought she was moving on, Embry saw photos of flowers in front of U.S. embassies around the world, and "the dam broke again. I ended up crying a little at work." Co-workers consoled with hugs.

"Everyone deals with grief differently," she said. "Some people are moving on and are fine. But I've been a roller coaster every day."

Put it on paper

A day after the attacks, Hallmark encouraged its workers to put their emotions on paper, like they'd done so many times before. On its Web site, the company posted the writings of Tennille, Karson and Embry, hoping to salve a hurting nation.

"Part of the way I deal with my own grief and trauma is through writing, so when they asked me for some words I was really happy to share," Embry said. "I was just thinking about what on earth could you say to someone suffering such an enormous, inexplicable loss, other than to say, 'We're suffering with you, and we're here."'

So became her "You Are Not Alone," in which she wrote of not knowing the victims or their families but being "with you in your pain."

"The hearts of many who you may never know are going out to you, are breaking for you," Embry wrote. "You are my sister, my brother, my neighbor, my countryman, my friend. And you are in my prayers, you are in our thoughts, and we are with you, behind you. You are not alone."