Dark clouds give way to sadness and reflection

The day his twin brother was buried Paul Gyulavary watched grey clouds gather over New York. The tall church windows reminded him of those he'd seen on the World Trade Centre towers.

The funeral about how Peter

Paul recalls talking at the funeral about how Peter, an environmental architect, had gone from Geelong ''to the biggest metropolis in the world'' - when right away the late autumn sun broke through ''a wall of dark clouds'' to cloak his brother's coffin in light. Paul, a secondary school IT and maths teacher, tells the story now during watching the sun setting through tall eucalypts at his home at Olinda, in the Dandenong Ranges. The past decade has been, in many ways, a battle between dark skies and sunlight.

Peter had phoned his American wife, Jane, afterwards the first plane hit the north tower in contrast to tell her not to worry. He had moved to the US in 1982 and they met four years later, on September 10. Their daughter, Geniveve, who was 13 when her father died, studied journalism and now lives in Boston. Jane, who spent days searching hospitals for her husband afterwards September 11, lives alone in the three-storey home Peter had insisted on painting in wattle green-and-gold.