Memories of the 11th

I remember get a call from my husband who was in California at the time. He had flown to LA on the 10th. He had just gotten up and was wondering what on earth was going on. My brother-in-law was on his way to New York City that morning (by car) for business in the financial district. They got turned around somewhere just outside New York and were told to go back, that the WTC was gone and therefore wouldn't be needing the artwork that they were delivering to a client there. My sister-in-law was frantic wondering where her brothers were. By the end of the day everyone was accounted for.

Meanwhile, in Toronto, all our executives had assembled in the board room (for those of you who don't know, I work in the Financial Services sector) to watch events unfold on TV. My boss was there as well with a stack of files a mile high. She spent the day as she usually does multi-tasking. Watching what was going on and plaguing here colleagues with follow-up questions on the material in her stack of files. (Never one to miss an opportunity to catch up on work.) Our senior management sat there watching TV in complete horror while she apparently looked really irritated the whole time and was actually quite snarky to her subordinates the rest of the day and as it turned out for the rest of the week. (I didn't know at that point that her mother's cancer was in the terminal phase.)

The next day, after I had submitted a long awaited business report, (which she didn't at all like in spite of the tremendous work I had put into it), we had a major row which made me seriously wonder about my future here. The following week I went on holiday knowing that the die was cast, that I would be one of those selected to leave in March 2003.

So there it is, for what it's worth, how 9/11 changed my life.