Remembrance of things past

Yesterday when I was checking Facebook updates of friends, one friend had suggested that everyone post a little blurb of what they were doing on September 11, 2001 when the planes hit the World Trade Center. I posted a little blurb, but I thought my blog would be a better space to say more.

We were maybe three weeks into my first semester of grad. school at The University of Iowa. I had just finished teaching a 7:30 AM freshman rhetoric class. I was sitting in the grad. student lab in the basement of the English Philosophy Building, finishing up a peer response sheet for the next day's peer review session on the first paper of the semester.

In walked a fellow graduate student. She looked terrible, and I asked what was wrong.

"Do you have any idea what just happened?"

Everything just sort of stopped. No more clicking of computer keys or anything. All of us in the room had been in class for the past hour, so no, we had no idea what just happened. When the newly arrived graduate student told us, we rushed into the reading center down the hall, where there was a television, to find out more. About 15 people, clustered around a TV screen, watched the second tower fall.

Good thing I was done teaching for the day and could go home. Everything felt surreal. I remember taking a walk through my Coralville neighborhood and wondering if the world was turning crazy. I didn't really know many people yet, although I did call my sister-in-law, who traveled a lot, to make sure she was okay and not stranded in an airport. I thought about all the missionaries who were in airports all over the country, trying to get to their mission fields (or come home).

That night I went to the Institute building for a choir practice. I was almost out of gas, so I stopped by the station near my house to fill up. What was with the big line of cars?

I woke up the morning of September 12th at 5:30 AM and thought, "Man, I hate getting up this early!" Then I remembered how many people would never be getting up for work or school again. Note to self: don't complain about daily schedule ever again. In my evening graduate class, we didn't talk about whatever was scheduled on the syllabus. One of my fellow grad. students had a cousin who was missing somewhere in Manhattan. We sat around a conference table and talked through possible explanations and tried to give her hope. (The cousin was eventually found in a hospital, knocked into a coma after being trampled on. I'm not sure if she ever came out of the coma.)

Friday afternoon, September 14th, I drove to Ames to visit a friend. We were still in shock. She turned on Duran Duran's greatest hits and we had a dance party with her kids in the living room. We needed to know we could still laugh.

I had to speak in Sacrament Meeting the Sunday after September 11th. I'd hoped I'd get out of it. I was sure the bishop would want to speak instead of me. When the second counselor in the bishopric called, I thought, "Yes! Here's my out!" Instead, he said, "We still want you to speak Sunday. Please make sure it's especially inspirational for the congregation." Gulp. So much for "Hi, I'm new in the ward and here's where I'm from and why I'm here." Somehow that didn't fit this setting. I don't remember what I talked about, but I remember it was hard to do.

Today, eight years and one day later, I spent the day at the Washington DC temple. I can't think of a safer place on earth. Lots has happened in the world in eight years, and our world still isn't a safe place. But WE can be safe individually and in our families. We can make sure our homes are holy places, places where the Spirit resides and keeps us safe. We can serve in the temple. We can live so that we always have the Spirit guiding us so that we're where we need to be at any given time. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is our only true peace.