The Unforgettable Trip

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The Unforgettable Trip

Just imagine losing the one person in this world that meant the most to you. This is what happened to my aunt Anne Payne. On the morning of September 11, all of her worst fears were realized. She been going about her day like any other; going on her morning walk, and then stopping by her local coffee store and picking up a cup of coffee for the walk back. When she got home and turned on the television to check the day’s news, her life was changed forever. When my dad and I found out the next day that her husband was in the World Trade Center when it collapsed, we knew we had to see her as soon as we could; she needed all the help she could get at this moment in time. The next week we took the trip to New York, and we had no clue what an experience we were about to go through.

On the flight out to New York my dad and I both did something that we had never done, we took a plane from Orange County at night and landed in New York in the morning. When we landed, we were soon picked up by my cousins Beth and Ann who also made the trip out to see our aunt. On the way to our hotel, I looked out the window and was in complete amazement. This was the first time that I had ever been to New York. I had never seen so many tall buildings in my life; I had been to Los Angeles but I couldn’t even compare the two. Not only were these building seemingly in the clouds, they were all stacked right next to each other. Once we got into our hotel and got unpacked, we went downstairs to meet the rest of my family and have drink.

Normally when we see family for the first time in a few years, the whole conversation revolves around each others lives and what each one of them how each one of them is doing. This was not the case though, the small talk ended after about five minutes. Everyone had something else on their mind, and that was the World Trade Centers and Aunt Anne. We briefly mentioned these topics though because we were unsure how to go about bringing it up. Due to the fact that it was still early in the investigation, we all had our own opinions of who might have made the attacks and for what reasons. The main consensus though was that it was done by a group of terrorists from somewhere in the Middle East. After about an hour of sitting and talking we all decided that it was about time to start heading over to Anne’s place.

As soon as I stepped into the door of her medium sized apartment, I felt this sense of depression and sadness. I didn’t even have to know anything about what just happened to realize that something was for sure wrong. All of the lights were dimmed, the air was a little musty and most everyone had a sullen look on their face. When I first laid eyes on my aunt I could tell she was very upset. It almost brought I tear to my eye though seeing her try to smile and be welcoming to all of us as we entered. She was trying so hard to be so very strong, and she was determined not to try and bring any of us down. The family decided to make dinner for her and everyone else just to try and make things easy. It was getting sort of late now and dinner had just finished, so we said our goodbyes and told everyone we would see them tomorrow. We had no clue what to expect tomorrow.

In the morning we woke up really early and decided that it would be nice to go get breakfast with Anne. We went to this little hole in the wall restaurant that she loved and had one of the best breakfasts I had ever eaten. My aunt told us that she was going to go visit some of the family of her deceased husband that day, and that we would all meet up for dinner. Once back at the hotel we saw the rest of our family have the continental breakfast that was provided in the lobby of our hotel. We sat and talked with them for a bit and then decided to go back to our room. Not ten minutes later we received a knock on our door from my cousin Beth. She had this somewhat excited look on her face and she told us that we were all going to get a fairy that was going to take us near Ground Zero.

When we arrived at the fairy, we told them that we had a relative that was in the building and didn’t make it out. They told us that this was the fairy for us then, he told us that they had fairies for the public and for family members only. On the way over to see ground zero we were able to catch a glimpse of the Statue of Liberty. Since I had never seen it was very enthused and excited at the same time. The closer that we got to ground zero, you could see smoke coming up from the middle of some medium sized buildings. Once we got off the fairy they told us that we were going to have to take about a four block walk to our final destination. During the whole walk over, the ground was littered with dust and debris.

At about block two is when I saw my first real