I'm not going to claim any sort of deep personal involvement with the events of ten years ago; no one close to me was killed and I suffered no loss. There is no one whose presence I miss, who was suddenly taken from my life or who was damaged by the carnage unleashed.
But my life did change.
Whenever my husband is flying (as he is this evening), my cell phone is on and by my side just in case he needs to call. He should have been in the air that day 10 years ago but by some zany quirk of fate his waiver got screwed up the day before and his flight on 9/11 was on Pacific time thus never getting airborne. We had only just emigrated to Canada, being only 10 days in the country, when I spent the day glued to the tv watching for survivors, begging my husband to just come back to our rental apartment to be near me and away from the highrises in downtown Vancouver. I sat on the rental couch hugging my cat who had arrived from the UK days earlier, and missing my dog who was, by all accounts, seriously ill from some mystery skin complaint treatment back in London (he eventually joined us mid October when the planes started flying again).
I felt far away from family, far away from friends, and far away from my old life's priorities.
Two months later I wrote to my mentors and sponsors, thanking them for their support but I was abandoning my research grant and studentship proposals. Four months after that I was pregnant; a year and eight months after arriving in BC, my son was born.
Yes, my life did change.
