It was Sept. 11, 2001. For me and a lot of others, it started out just to be a normal day. I live in Alaska so we were still asleep when the planes hit the Twin Towers. The first time my parents and I heard about the terrorist attacks in New York; Washington, D.C.; and Pennsylvania was when we arrived at school.

I was so far away that I thought I didn’t have anything to worry about. There was one girl at our school whose uncle was in the Pentagon when the plane hit. That’s the only way the attacks hit close to us. Later, we found out that her uncle was okay.

Our teacher decided to let us listen to the radio reports about it during class. I remember while I was listening that I thought that it was the worst thing that would happen that day. But I was wrong.

When school had started that year, a new student entered the eighth grade. No one knew much about him. He was kind of a shady person. He didn’t talk much and always wore baggy clothes and hoodies. You could never see his face. My dad, the principal at that time, was a little concerned about letting him come to our school. My dad suspected that the new student had most likely been involved with drugs and alcohol before coming to our school.

On Sept. 11, 2001, the new student wasn’t in school, but we all just thought he was sick. So when my dad walked into our classroom, I didn’t expect it to be about the new student. My classmates didn’t either. My dad walked to the front of the classroom, talked to our teacher quickly, and stood in front of the podium as if to make a speech or an announcement.

As he was making the announcement, you could tell that he was sad. I can remember watching him and seeing his pain through his facial expressions. The announcement seemed long. When it was over we were all stunned, including me. This boy had killed himself.

The attacks of that day had nothing to do with his suicide, even though I thought that it might have been because of the initial shock of the attacks. After most of us got over the initial shock of the news and my dad left, I started to cry. Everyone asked me why I was crying. At that time I couldn’t give them an answer, but now I can.

I thought about the boy and what had happened. He was a lost soul. Why did he kill himself? Wasn’t he interested in Bible history and God, I wondered. I cried because I felt that it was my fault that he didn’t believe or that I didn’t put enough effort into helping him understand the Bible or planting the seed of faith.

But it wasn’t my fault. Satan had tempted him into the life he lived and had tempted him to take his own life against God’s will. He followed that temptation.