story6996.xml

story6996.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2002-09-13

During the summer of 2001, my husband, Kimball, and I were preparing for our permanent move to Anchorage, Alaska. He had gone up there in June to start work and save up enough for us to have a place to live, while I stayed in Payson, Utah with my parents. Our daughter Hazel was almost 15 months old when he left, and I was four months pregnant with our second child (a boy, Nathan).

Kimball came back to Utah at the end of August so he could drive our car up the Alaska/Canada highway with his Mother. They left September 5th. It was a long, exhausting journey, and the whole trip was filled with an underlying feeling of urgency to get to Alaska. On the night of September 10th, instead of staying in a hotel, they were prompted to finish driving their last leg of the journey all the way through the state line that divides Canada from Alaska, and they made it to Anchorage during the early morning hours.

Falling asleep never felt so good for them as it did that night, but it was short-lived. They were awakened early in the morning on September 11th to hear the devastating news about the attacks. Aside from the extreme sorrow we all felt about what was happening, we were also very grateful for the promptings they had to keep pushing forward until they were past the state line. If they had not listened and waited not even a day more to go through, they would've been stranded in Canada for at least two weeks before the state line would be re-opened.

As for me, I was awakened the morning of 9/11 by the phone ringing. I ran to answer it, and it was my Mother calling from work. She told me to turn on the television, so I, still not knowing what was going on, turned on the T.V. just in time to see the second airplane smash heartlessly into the WTC. I wanted to cry, throw up and scream all at once. The words I use cannot even begin to describe the depth of the feelings I felt as I watched this horrifying sight.

Disbelief: How could a human being do something like this to other human beings?

Horror: This is real! Those airplanes actually smashed into the World Trade Center towers.

Sick inside: I saw people jumping out the windows in a desperate panic to escape, only to plummet to their deaths below. I cry to even think of how frightening those last few moments must have been.

Fear: Yesterday I lived in a world where I felt safe. Today I quickly realize how fragile life really is, and that terrible things can happen to anyone, anywhere.

On September 17, 2001 I took my first flight in an airplane to go to my new home in Alaska. Leaving my family and everything I knew behind, seven months pregnant, carrying an 18-month old child, all alone past the security point, and going to a place where I had never been, to start a new life from scratch, on top of going in an airplane for my first flight, and after the attacks, you can easily guess I was pretty nervous and saddened. I had to choke back the tears as I watched my family disappear behind the security gates, not knowing when I would ever see them again. It was a very difficult and heavy time in my life and in the nation.

Now a year later, I can look back on that period of my life and know that I am stronger. We made it through the storm. We have experienced a renewed sense of faith in God, and have stood in a united front. We have our freedom implanted in our hearts, and nobody, no airplane, nothing can take that away from us.