Another Day the World Changed

On this day in 2001, the world changed, and I still feel the effects of the attacks on New York, and Washington on 9/11/2001 (and the attacks in London on 7/7/2005).

When that day started, it was a typical day for me, I had gone to work and was in a meeting when a teammate called me over and showed me a picture of the second plane going into the towers on the CNN.COM website. At first, I was positive someone had photoshopped something and hacked the CNN site, but it quickly became apparent that this was not the case. As the day unfolded, it was evident that this would change the world as we knew it.

For me, a bunch of things came out of that day that changed my world:

• The economic tailspin contributed to Nortel’s problems (no it didn’t cause Nortel’s downfall, but it did help it along a fair amount). This eventually led to me getting laid off (again not a direct cause, but a contributing factor).
• I spent a lot of the day trying to figure out if my Brother was safe (given he was travelling at the time), he was fine, but I found out about friends who had family who was killed. I don’t know a lot of folks who had family who died, but the anguish they still feel is heart-rending.
• I tried to explain it all to my kids (who were very young at the time), but I am not sure that I succeeded since I really couldn’t make a logical explanation up as to why it happened.  Do they remember the day? Sort of, but not with the clarity that my wife and I do.

My life didn’t change direction because of the attacks. However, it did change the world and continues to change it.

There have been many days when the world changed, but this one looks to be the one (in my lifetime) that will live in infamy.

What are your 9/11 recollections?