A special date

I don’t think there is anybody who doesn’t remember what they did when they found out about the attacks on WTC. I was standing on a beach with my colleagues from work learning how to do archery. It was the second day of a two-day kick-off and teambuilding event, and we were all pretty tired and were mostly joking around and laughing. Andy got a phone call from his girlfriend telling him that an airplane had crashed into a skyscraper in NYC. We both told each other a thing like that sounded too weird to be true. But two minutes later everybody’s mobile phones started ringing and yes, it was true.

The irony in this story is that during lunch all of us hade been given 58 000 SEK by the company who bought back our stock options. The founder of the company had given us stock options in the company two years earlier. When he sold the company a year later the new owner didn’t want us to own part of the company. Andy’s first comment when we received the money was that now he would take his girlfriend to NYC and show her everything that he loved. Two hours later two of the tallest buildings in NYC were gone. Talk about anticlimax!

Two years later I also know exactly what I did on September 11. It was just after nine in the morning and I was standing in a colleague’s room watching a press conference by the PM on a very tiny monitor. When the PM and vice PM walked onto the stage we already knew what he was going to say. His looks said it all. Earlier during the morning the Swedish Foreign Minister Anna Lind had died after being severely stabbed the evening before at a department store in Stockholm.

A year later September 11 was a Saturday and I went to my third funeral in less then 24 hours. During the last days of August our family suffered three major deaths in less then 10 days. When it was time for funerals they all end up being held on Friday and Saturday. Very unreal!

But September 11 is also a day of happiness for some. The marketing woman who outed me as blogger told me the other day that she and her husband got married two years ago on September 11. And why not?! Life goes on no matter what, and love and marriage are prefect signs that the good forces are still winning. - Happy 2-year anniversary Pia! Hope you and hubby had a great day with many more to come!