Remember

On this day seven years ago I was two weeks into my last semester of classes at BYU. I was deep into news and reporting for our daily newscast so much that ever seeing the light of day was a rarity.

I was working part-time as a reporter for KBYU NewsNet and this happened to be my day off. Knowing it would be a chill day, I mentally allowed myself to sleep-in and relax for once.

Rather than my alarm, it was early in the morning that my sister's phone call woke me up. She asked me if I had seen the news and if I knew what was going on. Normally I would have known exactly what was happening in the world by that time of day, but on this day, I said that I hadn't heard anything. She then told me that a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center in New York. The news seemed shocking, yet I didn't quite know how to react. I hung up the phone with her and turned on my radio. Every channel was buzzing with the news that a plane hit the twin towers and the Pentagon. The more I listened, the more frustrated I became at the fact that my roommates and I were too cheap to pay for cable. The radio announcers' descriptions of what was going on was not enough for my less-than vivid imagination.

I got ready as soon as I could and made my way up to campus. As I walked, I noticed that things still seemed normal, yet in my mind I felt like things shouldn't have been. Even my roommates were unaffected by the news. That bothered me.

As I walked into the newsroom, it was the busiest I had ever seen it. The place was loud, every computer was in use, students were on phones and running around in a rush. The TVs were on to every possible news channel and our own anchors were on set broadcasting live. I walked through to the news set and caught the eye of my Instructor and we just looked at each other speechless. This was big. Not just for news, but for the country.

I spent the rest of the day running around seeking out public reaction to the day's earlier events. I found that as the day went on, reality of the magnitude of the attack was setting in and people were quickly beginning to understand what was going on. But not enough that I wasn't expected at my tennis class, which was upsetting.

Here we are seven years later and already, I feel like our country has forgotten what happened on September 11, 2001. I guess it would be easy to feel like we don't need to be re-living an ugly past, like we are digging up bad memories, or overdoing a memorial of an event that happened "so long ago." But, could this event be any more significant in our lives? At least for mine, I know it is the greatest human event I have been a part of.

The Seattle Times barely made mention of this anniversary. The Los Angeles Times gave it a front page teaser. CNN Online has it lost among the other headlines of the day on its Newsfeed and news stations are giving more time to drawn out political campaign activities than much respect for this day.

Have we forgotten that the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq (though disputeable) are off-sets of 9/11? How about the thousands of lives lost or ruined? The sacrifices of our country and our people? Other countries and their people? Our struggling economy? The effects are still with us, yet we forget the catalyst that accelerated the damage.

The following Spring in March 2002, I lived in New York for almost three months to do an internship at ABC. While there, I was often reminded of the events that had occurred only a few months before. There were posters offering free counseling to those still affected by 9/11 events and reminders to be a little kinder stood out on walls and in subway cars.

I ventured down to Ground Zero but I didn't spend too much time there. Walking through the subway terminals, the make-shift lighting, the closed off corridors and the settled dust gave me an eerie feeling. The streets were almost lifeless and shops were vacant. There wasn't much left of the area but lingering sorrow.

Were someone to ask me, "Where were you when JFK was shot?" I would not have an answer because I did not live in that time. But when I look to the future and years more down the road, and someone will ask me, "Where were you when the World Trade Center was attacked?" I know that I am of that generation that can say exactly where I was and what I was doing in that moment.

Obviously, I am no editorialist, but I feel strongly about this momentous day in our history. We are so fortunate to live where we live and to have the lives that we have and it is easy to get caught up in the comfort and ease of our lives and to forget the difficulties so many people face in the rest of the world. Spencer W. Kimball said that the most important word is "remember" and that it is our greatest need to remember. For these types of events that hold such significance on such a grand scale, I hope that we never forget.