story6196.xml

story6196.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2002-09-12

I had gone to my Mother-In laws house to deliver some pictures to a friend of hers because I am a photographer. As I walked in the door at 8:50 I said "How's it going?". She just looked at me and said "We are under attack." It didn't really register what she was saying to me so I said to her "What?" and she repeated "We are under attack!" I said "What do you mean?" and she went on to explain how something, they thought it was a plane had hit the world trade center and then she took me to the TV to show me what was going on. I couldn't believe it. Just then the 2nd plane went through the other world trade center building. I was in shock. I couldn't talk, I couldn't move, I could only sit there and watch the TV waiting for any explaination of what the hell was going on. I must have stayed there for hours and I never "hang" at my In-Laws house. We hugged and cried and prayed about what those people were going through. Finally I was able to pull myself away long enough to get back to my own house to watch it on TV there. I did nothing for the next week but sit in front of the TV and watch what was happening in our country. The weekend of September 28th, I had a wedding to shoot in Conneticut. I went down on Friday, shot the wedding on Saturday and thought it was great they went through with it and all their family got together for it. Sunday morning I got up and got on the train to head into New York City. I wanted to go to New York to take pictures, to leave a little memorial of my own, and to just leave a little love there. If just wanted to hug people to help them out. I walked from Grand Central Station all the way down to ground zero or as close as I could get. I was one of many doing the same thing. I took pictures along the way. Stopping as I saw Memorials like the one at Washington park. There was so much and so many things left by people it really gave you the sense of just how big this tragity had been. You can't really get that from TV which is why I felt pulled to go to New York since I had the chance because I was so close. Someone had left some chalk by the park so I took it and wrote on the ground "Vermont's Prayers are with New York." I felt very emotional, I cried a lot that day as I walked down to ground zero. As I walked I heard people say It's turning into a freak show people just want to come and see a pile of rubble. It wasn't like that for me. I just wanted to leave some love. People at different areas would argue about what should be done. We should bomb the shit out of them or do nothing at all. I felt like arguing about it was something we should definatelyl not be doing. I just wanted to leave some love. As I was walking I saw some guys putting on a street show flipping and jumping and thinking how great that was they were trying to take people's minds off things and provide some entertainment. I remember thinking how great New York was at that time. When I reached ground zero I was over took at how massive the pile of rubble was. I just stood there and cried, said a prayer, had my own moment of silence, said thank you to some people who were helping and then headed back to Grand Central Station to go back to Conneticut then drive back to Vermont. It was a long way to go but it gave me a lot of time to think and reflect. I felt lucky to be alive, I felt sad all those people had to die and I felt love for everyone I came across. Through that next year I was able to go to New York 2 more times. Once on October 14th Weekend for my 1 year Wedding Anniversary. My husband took me to see the show "Rent" and took me on a Horse Buggy Ride around times square. It was very nice and I loved sharing my love with New York again. We had a good time and it was the perfect Anniversary. I also found out that weekend that we were pregnant with our first child. In March I went back to New York with a couple of friends of mine and her son Christopher. He wanted to go to New York for his birth day. I was getting pretty big but agreed to take them. He loved New York and I was glad I could do that for him. He wanted to leave some love in New York also. We went down to the platform they had set up for ground zero. We signed a flag and left our own memorials there. On May 29th, 2002 the day they were taking the last piece of the trade center out of ground zero I had a beautiful baby girl. Alexis Nicole Anderson, 6pds 11ounces and 19inches long. I felt proud to be able to fill the world with one more soul to replace all the souls lost that September 11th day. Now I'm leaving a lot of love everywere.

April Stage Anderson 9/12/02