Sept 11, 2001 - I Will Remember

My senior year was quite the ordeal.

It was barely September and I already had a lot on my plate; some clandestine and even some down right crazy. I was the editor in chief of the high school paper, getting ready to secretly apply to BYU, putting together the plans for my running away from home to join the Church that would be put into action in December, I was dating, I was taking a stupid math class that would not let me graduate if I failed (no, not all Asians are good at math), and I was sneaking out to seminary--still...for the second year now.

I was leaving the stake center, much like how I begin most of my mornings after seminary, and took Halliburton down to Hacienda Blvd. Halliburton is quite the hill. My seminary friends and I would often race down the hill: them to their homes for breakfast and me to school for my zero period. Once I saw the remains of what looked like a thing with guts that was strewn across Halliburton and I deduced that 1) it was hit at a very high speed in order to spread that kind of carrion and 2) it might have been a dog--it was too hard to tell.

On this particular day, I was not racing anyone. I was just nonchalantly listening to the radio. I was tuned into a popular music station but they weren't playing any music. The announcers were talking about something big that had just happened. I couldn't figure out what they were talking about.

It's a pretty short commute from stake center to school so when I pulled into my parking spot that had my name on it (oh the joys of being a senior), I still hadn't picked up on anything unusual.

On the way to class, I stopped by Mr. Rockwood's room. He had been my honors English teacher when I was a sophomore and as a journalism advisor for the two subsequent years after that.

The door was open which is unusual because Mr. Rockwood would often read his scriptures in the morning before classes start. In the LDS world, Mr. Rockwood was actually a counselor in a stake presidency in a stake in the Chino Hills and Diamond Bar area. And he had been an unexpected source of guidance in my two year stint of trying to hide my religious desires. It was in my sophomore English class that I started keeping a journal. It was a stupid assignment, I thought at the time. However, certain circumstances happened and the gospel of Jesus Christ came into my life. The journal became something else entirely as I could write questions about doctrine or questions seeking advice knowing he would read the entry when he collected the journals to grade. For what it's worth, I've been keeping a journal since my sophomore year of high school.

But I digress.

I walked into the classroom and Mr. Rockwood was sitting on one of the tables, his attention fixed on the TV.

And that's when I saw the smoke billowing out of one of the towers. I don't recall if the other tower had been hit but I just stood in shock. I asked what was happening and I kind of wished I didn't. Mr. Rockwood calmly explained what was happening. My mind immediately raced to the idea that there were thousands and thousands of people still inside those buildings. I felt sick to my stomach and found myself eventually arriving at my math class.

I was late.

I was always late to math because seminary ends right when math starts but I had spoken with the teacher and she had made special arrangements to not count my tardies.

I told her to turn on the TV because the WTC had been hit by airplanes. She thought I was joking but I told her to do it.

The TV came to life and the shock and horror from my classmates washed over me like liquid dread.

By the time I came home from school that afternoon, I realized I was feeling pretty traumatized.

My heart literally hurt when I thought about the humanity that had perished.

The events of those day made me grow up a little more and I look back and realize how much the definition of America really became clear to me that day, that I could no longer use the word HERO the same way any more, and that somehow, I trusted that God had a plan.

Do any of you mind sharing where you were and what you were thinking when 9/11 happened?