Maybe it's just that time of year again, but the event that immediately came to mind when I read this question was the terrorist attack of 9/11. I actually remember quite a bit about that day, but what still comes to mind all the time is what has happened since and the feeling I get every year when I remember.
September 11th, 2001, I was 6 years old and in 1st grade. We were living at my Grandma and Grandpa Smith's house while Dad was looking for a job after PT school. I woke up to go to school, and I remember everyone was watching the TV. I don't think I really comprehended much of what was going on, but I remember seeing the towers on the screen burning and thinking that something was very wrong. School that day was very solemn; I'm sure my teacher said something to us, but like I said before, I just remember feelings.
Every year in school we would talk about what happened. Looking back, I think the teachers realized how important of an event that was and were trying to process it themselves as well as help us understand - it changed our outlook on terrorism, made some people paranoid, changed our airports and national security... it really changed everything.
The year I remember most was 7th grade. We had talked about it a lot in class, and we watched a little documentary. I spent the whole day feeling so sad. Mom checked out a video from the library, I think it was a compilation of news reports from that day, and then some interviews with witnesses and families who had lost loved ones. There was a girl in that video, my exact age, who told the interviewer she still slept with her dad's shirt; she told him how sad she was that he would never see her graduate or get married or play sports or have kids. That night when I went to bed, I just cried and cried for that poor girl and the hundreds of other kids just like her. I prayed and just asked, how in the world is it fair for her to lose her Dad? Why would this happen to someone so innocent and young?
A few years later, I believe my junior or senior year of high school, they built a 9/11 monument at the Southridge Complex by Highway 395. We went to the ceremony, and I cried again. Tears of sadness, yes, but also mixed with tears of hope. That day, I felt a peace from Heavenly Father reminding me that this was not the end for those people, that while it was a terrifying and horrible end, hope was not lost. God has a plan for those people, for the families they left behind, even for the men who were evil enough to kill the thousands of people that died when the towers came down. Through the atonement and Resurrection of Christ, we will all be resurrected and brought before God. One of my favorite quotes from Elder Wirthlin applies: "While it may not come at the time we desire, the faithful will know that every tear today will eventually be returned a hundredfold with tears of rejoicing and gratitude."
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