At the beginning

I guess I should start at the beginning. 
Tues Nov 13 - meeting invites come in for all company meetings with the Global Head Cheese MP and our GM.  I think nothing of these "transformational change" meetings until I start getting some emails from colleagues wondering what's going on.  I naively think possibly layoffs are happening in the US only.
Wed Nov 14 - layoffs are confirmed to be happening in both US and Canada and meetings to confirm who is impacted will be occurring the next day.  I get my one on one meeting invite with the Grim Reaper for Thur.   My concerns increase when I find out that others are being talked to on Wed and all are confirmed to be "safe".  That night I joke with my husband that my lunch the next day could be a very long lunch.  I place an order on the company store just in case, but of course do nothing to back up my computer files.  Now I see what was important to me.  Thank goodness I have enough feminine hygiene products to last me until menopause.
Thur Nov 15 - due to trouble getting the kids off to school on time with them forgetting his backpack, I am late coming into work.  It's for the best since I can barely concentrate on work anyway, and look every 5 min at the clock waiting for my 11:00 meeting to be told yay or nay.  30 min before my meeting I run into one of the finance guys and try and get the scoop on what is happening in their dept.  He doesn't go into very many details but it seems like there isn't anything too drastic happening there.  He sees my concern for myself but tells me I have nothing to worry about.  At 10:59 I get out of my chair but there is no-one around to give me a reassuring gaze or a note of encouragement.  I feel I am walking the plank as I make my way to the meeting room.  On the way I pass by our director's office, whom I shall affectionately refer to as Puppetmaster C.  There is not a glance my way, and in retrospect I know that she ignored me on purpose as she knew what was waiting for me.  In the reception area I see an unfamiliar face and I am uneasy as I know she must be from Knightsbridge.  I walk into the large meeting room with just the Grim Reaper, and as he opens his mouth to say "I am sorry..." that is all I hear and I turn away from him in the chair, looking blankly outside.  I am thinking I will not give him the satisfaction of looking at me and I try to hold it together but all the willing in the world does not prevent sobs from escaping.  The more I try to stop, the worse it gets.  The least he could have done is have made sure tissue was in the room.  Luckily I had the forethought to put a tissue in my pocket for the meeting, just in case.  I hear very little, but he doesn't say a whole lot.  Just that it wasn't performance related but my position was eliminated. At one point I try to call him on the BS to say that if they had wanted to keep me, they could have shuffled me around since that wouldn't have been the first time.
After an obligatory amount of time, he lets me know that he'll be bringing in his friend from Knightsbridge to explain what will happen next.  I resent being told by someone I barely knew that my time after 10 years was done, and whom I knew was being played as a puppet anyway.  Then to have a complete stranger come in felt even more foreign and I couldn't stop bawling.  All I wanted was to talk to a friend.  When she gave me some time in the room alone, I looked at the phone and wondered if I would be able to sneak in a call to x2916 before getting caught.  I asked repeatedly if I could say goodbye to the people I had known for so long but was told it wasn't possible.  When she did ask who I really wanted to see and I mentioned my work wife, imagine my surprise when she told she was also affected.  I couldn't believe it.  Perfect in a Tim Burton twisted kind of way.  A way to wipe out some more old school culture out of LFSCA in one fell swoop. 
So this is how our lives outside of LFSCA started and who knows how it will end up.  I do know that my work wife and I will support one another, propped up by our family and friends in the belief that we can overcome this and we will emerge on the other side stronger and knowing there is a reason for everything.
We shall overcome, but there will be some bon bon eating, TV watching and napping in the daytime for a brief period of time.  I will not feel guilty for doing some things we used to daydream about doing while working.  We deserve it after all these years of pleasure-pain.