Programming Note: Watch BYUtv on Sunday to see a special Music & the Spoken Word, featuring guest Tom Brokaw, that honors the victims of September 11, 2001. For broadcast details, click here. 

My only visit to the top of the World Trade Center was in July of 2001. I was 17, on a road trip up the East Coast with my family. My younger brother and I made a trip to the observation deck of the South Tower late one night, around 11pm, just an hour or so before the tower closed. After visiting the top, I remember standing with a very small group of people, waiting to board the elevator to go back down to street level. A woman, probably in her early 40s, stood near our group. She worked at the World Trade Center, shuffling tourists in and out of the busy elevators. Ours arrived, the doors opened, and I stepped forward to board. She stopped me briskly, saying that I needed to wait my turn. I was mildly embarrassed that she scolded me in front of a group of strangers. Because of this exchange, I remembered her face.

Two months later, watching the chaos of September 11th unfold on television, I thought about that woman at the elevator. Was she working that morning, high in the South Tower? Was she there as the towers burned, as they fell? Was her family crying, praying for her return? Was she scared? Was she safe?

For me, that woman’s face defined the tragedy that day. I don’t know where she is now—she may very well have survived. I hope so. But thousands didn’t. And it’s frustrating, mind-numbing even, to try and make sense of numbers like that. Thousands of faces. 2,977 to be exact. And hundreds of thousands of mourning spouses and parents and children and grandparents and best friends.

Brutality and anguish were not the only characteristics displayed that day, however. We've all heard the stories of selfless emergency personnel that gave their lives serving others, and brave passengers on Flight 93 that fought back. And there are numberless stories like this, stories of altruism, sacrifice and service from those caught up in the pandemonium that day.

Here is one such story, told by Elizabeth Emery, whose husband, Edgar Emery, worked in human resources for Fiduciary Trust on the 90th floor of 2 World Trade Center. It's not a story you'll hear about on the news this weekend—there are just too many like it. There are literally too many acts of heroism to recount. But I want to share Edgar's brief story, as told by his wife to a field reporter for The New York Times in April 2002:

I've been wating seven months for someone to take an interest in the story of those on Sept. 11 who were certainly heroes just like the police and the firemen.

Ed was in his office. He always got in at about 8:30. We took the same train in. He was on the 90th floor. There was a training class scheduled with a visitor.

When the first tower was struck, there was of course the sound. And the smoke and paper flying in the air. Ed came out of his office. People were reacting and screaming. "What happened?'' I spoke to several people that Ed had escorted down moments thereafter.

He came out of his office and gathered his group together. He said, Okay, everyone out, everyone out. Which is five women. I have spoken to each of them. He got them down the stairwell from the 90th floor to the 78th floor. And reassured them. They were very frightend. One woman was recovering from cancer. Another woman had been in the towers in '93. And she was incredibly frightened.

He got them to the 78th floor and they asked him do we continue down the stairs or take the elevator. He pressed the button for the elevator. It arrived. He put them on the elevator. [Ed goes back up.]

I must clarify that it was not his job title or professional responsibility to do that. He chose to do that out of decency. He worked in human resources. But he was not the H.R. director. He was not in charge of evacuation.

He also knew there were other people up there. He went back.

In any case he returned upstairs. And he met [his coworker] Alayne somewhere between the 90th and 97th floors.

He called me and the first thing that I asked him was can you get out. Because I had been in the Trade Center in '93. And I knew how difficult it is to get out. I said can you get out. And he said, "I don't know, it's very smoky.'' And he said, "I called Port Authority to come rescue us.''

For him to say that to me means that he knew he was trapped. Then he paused and he told me that he loved me. And I said I love you too. And we were cut off. I did not get a dial tone. The phone went into dead air.

What stands out to me most from that story is when Elizabeth says, He chose to do that out of decency. That's how so many people died on September 11th—being decent. They went back up the towers to look for missing friends. They stayed on the phone with worried loved ones and calmly told them everything would be OK, even though many of them knew it wouldn't. They trudged into the fires to save strangers. They quietly prayed with coworkers in their offices as smoke filled the rooms. They fought armed hijackers with their bare fists.

I was in New York earlier this year and asked a cab driver why he thought the city is so much safer now than it was 10 or 20 years ago. He said that he believed one of the reasons is 9/11. He said 9/11 made people more decent, made people care about one another more than before.

So while you watch the memorial tributes and news bulletins this weekend honoring the victims of that day, try to remember their extraordinary decency and humanity in the face of overwhelming evil. Try to envision their faces. And take solace in the fact that the world they left behind is probably gentler and more generous because of who they were and the lives they blessed.

Regarding September 11th, I believe President Gordon B. Hinckley said it best in his October 2001 General Conference address: 

“Peace may be denied for a season…But God our Eternal Father will watch over this nation and all of the civilized world who look to him…Our safety lies in repentance. Our strength comes from obedience to the commandments of God.

“Let us be prayerful. Let us pray for righteousness. Let us pray for the forces of good. Let us reach out to help men and women of goodwill, whatever their religious persuasion and wherever they live. Let us stand firm against evil, both at home and abroad. Let us live worthy of the blessings of heaven, reforming our lives where necessary and looking to him, the Father of us all. He has said, 'Be still, and know that I am God'."