Here's the REAL thing

My heart just broke into a million pieces.



I want to remember this morning so I'm going to write it down right now.

This morning at 6:30 ish Chris woke me up by laughing at me. Apparently my hair looked really crazy, and my mouth was hanging open, and my face was really smashed into my pillow. Also I was holding my phone. I believed him. Then I got up and went to the bathroom and looked in the mirror and yelled, "Chris, my hair is amazing!" And he was like, "I know, that's what I was saying!"

Then I wandered out into the living room where he was getting ready for work. My plan for the morning was to sleep until about 7:15, get ready really fast for work, then leave for work at 7:30 on foot. But as I was standing there in all my messy haired stupor, Chris said, "Don't you still have your dad's car?" I gasped, and he laughed at me and said I looked like that was the best thing that ever happened to me. (There's a whole big long thing about why i had my dad's car, and it's not important right now.) I said it WAS the best thing that had ever happened to me. Then Chris said that I have a disease. I asked if he was referring to the disease where I liked to drive places in the winter and not walk, and he said he was actually referring to the disease of always wanting to go back to sleep. I do suffer from both, it is true.

So anyway, I said goodbye to my brave Pharmacy student husband, and got back into my bed. Except when I am awake for that long in the mornings, something happens to me. My brain wakes up. And even though my body loves to sleep, my brain does not. So I was awake.

I decided to seize the moment where I was home and Chris was not to work on a super special Christmas present for him. I pulled out all my supplies onto our kitchen table, and set up my laptop with some Hulu action. Not 2 minutes into this, Chris called.

He told me the Provo Tabernacle was on fire, he'd just heard it on the radio. He didn't know anything but that. I gasped and told him thank you for calling, then got online. I looked through the pictures on KSL and started crying. Then I called Chris back to tell him that this was a BIG fire. I obviously called my parents too and told them.

I continued on my little project for Chris, then set up with my dad to go meet him at Big O Tires, where he was dropping off one car, and I would pick him up in his, and we would go to work together. On my way there I called the office and let one of the other guys know what was up, so he would know that me and Dave would be in a little later than 8:00. He told me that as long as we were out and about, we should drive down and see the Tabernacle. He said he'd gone down on his way to the office, and it looked so sad.

So we did. We parked by the Courthouse and walked up and looked at the damage. I cried almost the entire time, and my dad did too. I knew it would look bad, but it looked even worse than I thought it would. Those beautiful gothic windows, just crumbling. We stood around with other people, nearly everyone with tears in their eyes. My dad told me that when he was growing up they had every single Stake Conference there. They had Seminary graduation there, and he spoke at it. I love that old building. Provo doesn't have too many historic buildings, you know. It's not like we live in Boston or something. And that one is the most beautiful and wonderful of them all. I can't believe it's burning down.

We stood on the East side for a while, then I suggested we go check out the South side. I couldn't believe it. Thick, dark smoke just belching from the top, and there were still flames on the inside. I could see pieces of wood, I'm not sure if it was the benches or those skinny columns that hold up the upper floor, but it was heartbreaking. I stood there and sobbed. A guy had a video camera and was slowly panning the burning building, and then the crowd, and I was somewhat aware that he was filming me, probably because I was the one who was crying the most. It made me feel a little bit weird, but I just tried not to look at him.

I'm no firefighter, but I wanted to be like, "Uh, hello! See those flames? You should go in through the window right there and put them out! You're just hanging out from above!" I'm sure there's a reason for that, but oh. I just hated it. The front door had all sorts of debris spilling out of it. The 4 towers were still intact, which hopefully means those wonderful spiral staircases will survive.

Please let it be rebuilt. The only thing more tragic than it burning down would be for it to not be rebuilt. I don't want this to be one of those things where when I have children I drive down University Avenue and say, "Right here on 1st South there used to be a beautiful tabernacle that pioneers built, but in 2010 it burned down and they decided to raze it. And now the whole BLOCK is the NuSkin building. Crazy, huh?"

Anyway, I know this is sort of long and all, but I wanted to remember. This is a big day for me as a Provo native and as a person with loads of sentimentality. I just have a lot of feelings. Mean Girls. But seriously, I am so sad about this. It's such a wonderful old building filled with so many memories for so many people, and the word that keeps coming to mind over and over is heartbroken. I am, and I'm sure lots of other people are too.