I didn't and still don't live anywhere near the 9/11 attack sites.

I may have known people living in New York at the time, but none of the thousands dead.

Ten years later, we haven't forgotten. We're not allowed to. We were reminded this year before September even got here. It's kinda like how Christmas arrives at retail stores the day after Halloween. Or how Halloween shows up on Labor Day weekend. 9/11 showed up in August.

My memories are more like the majority of the country rather than those in close proximity.

The pop music station that would come on my clock radio as a signal to get up was not playing music. There was news. Of some importance. I didn't quite understand what they were saying, and turned it off on my way to the shower. But I did know I should turn the TV on after I dressed for work.

I thought I was watching a live shot of the second plane going into the tower, but I'm pretty sure now it was a replay. All of the initial New York damage had already occurred. In fact, all four planes were probably already down in their final resting places.

After watching this for a few minutes, I drove to work.

Nothing much was done for the rest of the week. One of my clients was in New York (not in the city proper, but close), and the other was in California. Neither of them would bother us with questions or work the whole week.

There was no football. No baseball. No Wall Street. No music on the radio. No regular programming on the TV. And the news was no new news very quickly. It was constant replay, and I didn't watch much of it. The beginning of Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 shows clips of the planes going into the towers, and I remember being somewhat shocked when I saw that movie for the first time. I had shielded myself from the endless repeats of the scene.

Most striking to me was the absence of planes in the air.

I've lived near Air Force bases and/or airports for most of my life. As in just a few miles away. Not having planes in the air is not only unusual, it never happens. I sat in my backyard and enjoyed the silence.

Less than two months later, I did lose a close friend. It wasn't terrorists. It was heroin. Brought on by almost a year of abusing cocaine. It was accidental, but devastating none the less. It's my personal connection to 9/11. The part that really rocked my world.

And last week, almost ten years after 9/11, I lost another friend.

During my time at Ameritest (over six years), I had one Research Director. Tom Rehfeld died on Thursday from complications related to Hepatitis C. The descent, as far as I know at the moment, was sudden. I was alerted to his situation on Tuesday. I barely had time to process it all before he was gone.

Tom and I didn't go out drinking together. Or share family picnics. We worked together, and I was, eventually, his go to analyst. When I left, he was not happy.

We didn't always see eye to eye about things. On a few occasions, I did exactly the opposite of what he asked me to do. We both had our reasons.

And a couple of months ago, he was fired from Ameritest. He sent me an email (Tom had seen the hatchet coming, and mentioned his feeling of short-timeness in a previous email) after getting sacked, and said his wife was more concerned about it than he was.

The last time we were together in person (a year ago), I didn't actually get to talk to him. I was on stage playing god, and he and his wife were in the audience. After the show I did a quick change, but they had left already.

Sometimes when we never forget, we remember different things.

Matt Worley, despite playing god, has no real powers of healing. Just dealing.