Do You Remember?

I do.

Like millions of others today, I am looking back on September 11, 2001, a day I woke up, and took my children to school.

The day was normal. What would breakfast be? What arguments about clothes would I hear? What would the “fit” of the day be?

After all those normal things were finished, I sat down to write at my computer. And then my husband called me. Said, “Turn on the TV. The World Trade Center is under attack.”

I watched in horror, with the rest of the nation and our nation’s sympathizers, as the World Trade Center fell. I watched the endless newscasts. I cried on end. I fought the desire to drive to the school and pull my children out, and hide them away from this horrible world.

I called my mom, who was getting ready to depart on a Mormon mission to Switzerland, and said, “Mom, turn on the television. The World Trade Center has been attacked.”

“In Switzerland?” she said, horror filling her voice. I guess you can tell where HER head was.

“No, Mom, the World Trade Center in New York. America is under attack.”

It would soon hit home for her, hard. The truth would be undeniable. Her visiting teacher, a member of her ward, a woman who had sat in her living room just DAYS before, had been on American Airlines Flight 11, the first plane to slam into the trade center.

Her name was Mary Alice Wahlstrom.

For months after the attack on America, flags flew at halfmast, and I could not drive by one without tearing up.

Do you remember? I do. I will never forget.

This is honor of all the victims of 9/11. Godspeed.