It was one of those days…
you’ll never forget.
Even though I cringe at so much of the jingoistic behavior that accompanies so much of this day, I can’t help but remember what I was doing that morning.
The day before our entire office (6 people of a small training company based out of Detroit) had been told that they were going to close our office at the end of October. Only the week before, the VP had been out for a visit and blew sunshine up our skirts about what a wonderful job we were doing and how strong the business was. Now we were all laid off with the offer that we could “continue to finish our projects but were free to take a new job as soon as we had one.”
I had a big project with a client in San Antonio and it wasn’t due to be delivered until November. I remember thinking that I either had to move up the timeline (which is really hard to do since it would require the client to deliver their pieces faster) or simply work for a clean handoff.
The morning of the 11th I had a conference call with the client and other project members from another Michigan office. It was the habit of my kids to watch TV before school. They were watching TV, but it wasn’t cartoons. As I raced past the living room into the kitchen I stopped to watch over DS2’s shoulder at what I thought was an ad for a video game or a movie. It was neither. They were replaying the plane hitting the first tower.
As I stood there, frozen in place, we watched as the second plane hit. It was several minutes before I roused myself enough to distract the boys from watching this horror. They were 2nd and 5th grade.
When I got to the office, (late) and joined the conference call (at 8:40, late) I told them what was happening. None of them knew and basically dismissed my assertion that I thought it might be an attack instead of a freak accident. It was very early still and none of them had heard about it (having been good do-bees and in the office long before 9:00 eastern time.) It wasn’t certain at that time that it WAS a terrorist attack.
DS2 says he remembers that day clearly. And he remembers talking about it in school. He was in 2nd grade.
DS1 says he doesn’t remember anything about that day, but I wonder.
It was later that week that I realized how the events of that morning put the events of the day before into perspective. Sure, I was the breadwinner of the family (X was stay-at-home-dad at the time) and I’d been laid off. But at least I wasn’t riding concrete down 75 flights of stairs.
— — —
A year ago (or longer) on This Journey…
-
And now the third… 2007
Sometimes Mom confirms what others say about you….. 2007
talk about rejection 2006
— — —
A year ago (or longer) on This Journey…
-
And now the third… 2007
Sometimes Mom confirms what others say about you….. 2007
talk about rejection 2006
— — —
A year ago (or longer) on This Journey…
December 30th, 2006 at 9:25 pm
You and I both are glad that we weren’t riding the stairs. I was at QuickTrip getting my morning coffee and then went back home to watch for the remainder of my day off. It was horrible and eerie.
Mon Sep 11, 09:25:00 PM 2006