Remembering: 10 years later

It was a beautiful fall morning in Pocatello, Idaho.  I was attending ISU at the time living in a little basement apartment with three other girls.  From the start it was an unusual day.  You see normally I would have been home alone getting ready for my first class, but oddly enough, the cosmos (or at least a canceled class, a change in work schedule and a missing gym buddy) aligned to put all three of my roommates home with me that morning.  We had already joked about how it must be a special day for all of us to be home at the same time on a weekday morning and were all getting ready when the phone rang.  I picked it up and saw on the caller ID that it was my roommate Kathy's older sister.  I walked into our room and handed it to her without bothering to answer and returned to the bathroom to finish my morning routine.  A few moments later Kathy came running into the living room exclaiming "It's the end of the world! Turn on the TV". Soon the four of us were sitting in our living room glued to the TV trying to make sense of what was going on.  We'd only had the TV on for a minute or two when the first tower collapsed. 

I remember watching in shock wondering how many Americans were doing the same thing and how many of those people knew someone who was in one of those towers.  After a while I pulled myself away to go to my classes.  One of them barely acknowledged what was happening but the other one was taught by a grad student from India.  He said right up front that he didn't plan on having class that day, but if any of us wanted to talk about what was happening we could.  He then went on to share some of his feelings on the events of the day saying over and over again in his thickly accented voice "This just doesn't happen in America".  Having lived in several large cities in India he said that news of periodic bombings etc. were almost common place but he never dreamed something like this could ever happen to America.  It was an interesting perspective to consider as I hadn't really thought about how the international world might perceive these events.  As several of my classmates shared some of their thoughts it was interesting to compare and contrast everyone's varying perspectives and reactions.

A few days later the LDS Institute of Religion held a special memorial service that I attended and I couldn't help but compare the messages and overall spirit of the meeting to the Presidential address and political commentaries I'd heard.  Having an eternal perspective on life's challenges, obstacles, and events certainly makes a difference.  I'm grateful to know what I do about God's plan for us and found great comfort then and have many times since when terrible or heart breaking things happen.