Kay,
I was absolutely riveted by your post today on every level. When I got into
work my assistant asked me "so what's the latest?" (meaning what news I had
heard) and all I could do was relate to him parts of your post. It took his
breath away and believe me, bolstered and heartened him as much as it did
me.
I wanted to share some of the way this has been affecting people in my
little niche out here in L.A. The people in my law firm all the way from
the bottom to the top are still shell-shocked. I have been amazed at the
compassion shown by the "powers that be". They are keeping TVs going in the
office, have set aside rooms for people to go to and talk and have written
several sensitive and support memos to the employees. When I returned to
work on Wednesday morning, it was the lawyers who are usually the coldest
and hardest who had the reddest eyes and most devastated posture. We
learned that we had several of our lawyers in New York and D.C. at the time
of the incidents. All of them were safe. We were told that two of them
(who I have worked very closely with for years) were going to rent a car and
start driving west out of NYC. At first I thought it was a joke, but it
wasn't. They drove all the way to Denver and then flew in this morning from
there. Several of our main clients' offices were in the WTC buildings which
were destroyed. I just finished a project this morning that should have
taken me a few hours to complete, but which took me these 2 1/2 days. When
I left for lunch, there were several circles of people outside holding hands
in silence. I lost it. Then someone started singing "My Country Tis of
Thee" and we all joined in choking, crying and completely out of tune. I
haven't sang that song since I was about 7 years old, but all the words came
back to me.
My country tis of thee
Sweet land of liberty
Let freedom ring
Land where my fathers died
Land of the pilgrim's pride
>From every mountainside
Let freedom ring
Kakki
