September 11th

On the morning of September 11th, 2001, I was living with my dad and step-mom in Santaquin.
I was in 7th grade, going to Payson Middle School.
I was also going through the worst year of my life.
This day was before the hell-ish year though, more like the beginning.
I was actually still going to public school and so I walked into my first period Health class where my teacher walked into the classroom with tears streaming down his face.
It is a little weird to see a grown man cry, especially in front of the whole class.
He looked right at the TV in the front left corner of the classroom and said,
"There's something you guys need to see."
The first image I saw was of a reporter talking really fast and with tons of anxiety and worry in her voice.
The next thing I saw was the first tower, completely on fire with huge pillows of smoke surrounding the building.
Then I sat and watched the second tower as a plane that seemed to be going as fast as it could go, flew straight for the second tower of the World Trade Center.
I never knew what the WTC was before, why should I? I was 12 years old..
I think a lot of people learned what the World Trade Center was after this..
I distinctly remember learning about the Holocaust in History and it being the most interesting and scary thing I'd ever learned in school. I learned about Anne Frank and how her family hid within the walls of their own home from the Nazis.
I remember thinking "Oh my gosh I feel like a modern day mormon Anne Frank!"
Obviously the attacks on 9/11 had nothing to do with mormons, but the fact that someone could intentionally kill so many people, reminded me of the Holocaust and the Nazis killing people with no feeling or remorse.
A girl has to go through enough emotional confusion at the age of 12, so having such a national tragedy happen definitely is hard to handle maturely.
But I remember coming home from school, doing my housework, and watching the news all night after that..
I wanted to understand what had happened and why.
I didn't understand a lot of things but one thing I did understand was that there were very selfish men that had no value for human life, and there were completely selfless men and women that sacrificed their own lives because they valued others' lives above their own.
I will always have a deep-rooted appreciation and love for local firefighters, policemen, soldiers and volunteers because of my unique experience on September 11th.
May we always remember how we felt on that day!