Toledo

Shelly Bryant returned a tiny angel to her dead cousin yesterday.

Kneeling outside the Lucas County Courthouse and blinking against tears and the cold, the Toledo mother of four quietly slipped a small round angel medallion through the laces of an empty pair of boots. The combat boots represented the life and death of Pfc. Nicholaus E. Zimmer, a former Toledoan. He had handed the tiny piece to Ms. Bryant two years ago to comfort her as her mother battled cancer.

"I carried it with me all the time," she said, standing and glancing around at the 1,134 pairs of empty black boots. "This is where it belongs now."

People are drawn to the momentoes that family members, friends and others have tied to the boots. One of the most poignant is a note from Mrs. Rosas, the mother of a 21-year old soldier from Lansing. She wrote on the note that "wherever these boots travel, my broken heart will follow."