Four years!

Yesterday was the 4th anniversary of my friend's death. The weird thing is that it did not even OCCUR to me that it was until about 11:15 last night, despite doing several things requiring me to do something involving the date, and despite posting on an internet board something about him (unrelated to his death). It wasn't until someone on the local news was talking about one of the 9/11 widows, and how it's been 4 years since it happened that I thought, "oh yeah... that's today, isn't it?"

For me, my friend's death and 9/11 are very closely linked in my head because they happened about a month apart, and at the time I was living in DC, working in a government agency just up the road from the Pentagon. I think I can safely say that I have never been so scared in my life (I remember that I wouldn't take the highway home- I took surface streets because who knew what would happen next?), and it was just unbelievable that so many people died. It was a trauma after a trauma that was still very fresh.

My husband is so awesome (this is related). I was in the bathroom last night brushing my teeth when I overheard the news, and then I came to bed, and he immediately knew something was wrong. He is really good at being perceptive. It's amazing. I was thinking last night how incredible he was after my friend died. I was a total mess. I was a total mess for about 2 years, but I was especially bad off during the first couple of months. That experience was what allayed any doubts that I had about him being a good person to marry. He had led a relatively charmed life, and I had real concerns about how he would handle hardship- would he run away or take it like a man? Thankfully, it was the latter. He's the best.