September 11, 2001

Eight years? Has it really been eight years? I don't believe it. That day is still so vivid in my memory...

I was fresh out of high school, embarking on my first time away from home, attending university at SUU. The weather was a little crisp outside, but maybe that's because I was up early, heading towards my morning art-history class. As I walked past the other dorms, I overheard someone mention to another passer-by that there was some kind of plane crash in New York. I kept walking. Plane crashes happen all the time, right?

As I got to class, I took my seat, waiting for the professor to get to the room to start class. A girl on the front row turned around and said "A plane crashed into a building in New York. It was on the news." A plane crashed INTO A BUILDING? That caught my attention. We all just sat there, wishing we had more information. Just then, our professor came into the room. She informed us that due to the nature of the goings-on in New York City, class would be canceled, as would all the classes that day. We were advised to go home and watch the news.

That's where I spent the rest of my day - glued to the TV in my small room, unable to step away. All of my other roommates were crowded in there with me. We watched as the second airplane crashed into the towers, the news came in of the other crashes in surrounding areas, followed soon after by the crumbling of those magnificent, New York City structures. I was in shock. I couldn't believe what I was watching. Could something like this really be happening in the greatest country in the world? It could, and it was. I wondered how it was going to affect me; how it was going to affect the rest of the country. I was in a little city in Utah, very far away from where all this was happening, but this tragedy was already having far-reaching effects. One of my neighbors in the dorm next to mine was feeling those effects. She had family in that neck of the woods and was sick with worry. I can't imagine what she was going through.

In the eight years that have passed, it's amazing to think of all that has happened. Life has gone on and we've adapted. I think of how my own little, insignificant life has gone on, but how this one event will always be fresh in my memory. I'm sure that in another eight years, lots more will have changed, but the thoughts of 9/11 will stay the same.

May God bless this great country...