Tuesday

I was at work. A different job than I have now, different boss. The Boss was yelling at me for doing exactly what he told me to do. (ever have one of THOSE bosses)?

Then the neighboring cubicle got a phone call from a friend working downtown, and the world forever changed.

I can't (without lots of pain and sobbing) give you the blow-by-blow of my day. I don't want to think of it.

But I can tell you the bits that I remember this year.

That Phil, a 22-year-old who worked for me (I was a manager), called me up sobbing because he didn't know where his mother was. I talked him through her likely locations, and an hour later she came home from work (safe and sound).

That my father called up, demanding that I go find my brother because he couldn't get him on the phone. My father "knew" that I would be okay; it was B. that we had to worry about. (Brother was in Midtown, away from it all).

That I wore a new shirt that day that I'd loved in the store, but was hesitant wearing to work.

That I bought that shirt at a store in the World Trade Center.

That I threw out that shirt and never wore it again.

Six years later, it still hurts.