Essay #9 Disaster Vacation..My Trail of Survival and Acceptance
I actually imagine myself as a giant magnet attracting disaster after disaster and yet I always survive to tell the story. Do I do more than survive? Do I use the disaster to make a difference in my life? I have many scars from the horrors I have faced but I try to tell the stories to make the pain mean something by helping others avert disasters, find a way to survive, and show them you can start over in life. Yes nothing will ever be the same but there is only one choice get busy living or get busy dying and time after time I have chosen to rise from the ashes of disaster. I think the three disasters of my last vacation will deter anyone from ever leaving home again. I last went on a vacation in August 25th 2001. It was to be the trip of a lifetime. Driving to Virginia Beach for a week of fun, sun, sand, concert, chance to work on my marriage, and then culminating with a two day business seminar on September 9th and 10th in NYC for MBNA at our offices on 11th floor of National Trade Center on the way home from Virginia Beach. This business seminar was in the mornings giving us a chance to tour the city in the afternoon and take in a show at night. Three disasters ensued in rapid succession. A 5 year old child was killed on the beach before our very eyes from a shark attack, the next day we witnessed a man beat his wife almost to death while waiving a gun before a brave man fought him to the ground, and the as we were leaving the city on September 10th heading home feeling that the disaster magnet syndrome had passed we arrived home in the night to experience September 11th terror attack the next morning while at work. I have not taken a vacation since as I feel I have been cursed by disasters and since they grew in horror culminating in a disaster of mammoth proportion I refuse to test fate as I can imagine nothing more devastating than the attack of September 11th.
The first disaster of course was soon after we arrived in Virginia Beach and I had never been to place where you could swim in the ocean without death or hypothermia being the result. I was so excited to swim in that warm ocean water as I had never been to a more tropical climate. We checked into Turtle Bay which was right on Virginia Beach and was even more beautiful than the brochures had touted. I immediately changed into my suit and my husband into his trunks and with 2 chairs and a bag in tow we went out into the bright sun. It was 88 degrees with bright intense sun and a warm breeze pushing the waves in against the beautiful tan sand. Quite a contrast from the rock bound coast with 38 degree water if you’re lucky in August. We staked out a spot and there were so many people as far as the eye could see. Families frolicking in the surf, picnicking on the beach, kites being flown, young girls tanning, older folks reading, and then out of the corner of my eye I see a man running straight toward the ocean. I see the lifeguard jump from atop his perch and race toward the surf. A woman as if crazed rushing toward the sea screaming as she raced her hair streaming behind her and people rushing from every direction. It was apparent something terrible was happening and we watched in horror and we moved closer to the scene as the lifeguard and father dripping placed a small boy on the ground as his lifeless body was convulsing. There was so much blood and it appeared his leg had been ripped from his body and part of a femur was exposed shattered with pieces of tissue hanging as if the ripped hem of a dress. I couldn’t look away the lifeguard was doing C.P. R. and another lifeguard had appeared and was
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