Jimmy Anderson tsunami

An inspirational tale.

Jimmy and Crystal Anderson were vacationing in a beachfront bungalow in Phuket when the tsunami struck. In three seconds, a giant wave turned their room into “a huge washing machine,” Jimmy Anderson, a freelance photographer, recalled. “This is it,” he told himself. “This is how our lives end.”

But the high school sweethearts, who married six years ago and moved to Singapore three months ago, escaped death. They swam out the bungalow's door, caught hold of floating chair cushions, grabbed onto a tree and climbed to safety.

The Andersons know they could easily have died. A month earlier, Jimmy had watched a special about tsunamis on the Discovery Channel. He said he knew the first wave would be followed by a bigger one. “We've got to get higher!” he yelled to his wife.

They watched the second wave approach, about 10 feet taller than the first. The wave ripped down bigger trees and lashed at the one they clung to. But there was a concrete wall around the base of the tree, and the tree held. “We were in the tree for two hours before the last wave went out,” he said.

Thousands of miles away in Spanaway, Wash., near Tacoma, Marianne Anderson, 53, feared the worst for her son and daughter-in-law. “We were just frantic with worry. I talked to the State Department and put them on the list of missing people,” she said.

This story is not about me.

My wife is not Crystal Anderson, and Marianne Anderson is not my mother. I never had a high school sweetheart. I rarely watch the Discovery Channel--no cable. I can't swim. I am not a freelance photographer. I have been married for one year, nine months, and ten days.

I have never survived a tsunami, and never will, given the chance. (See "I can't swim," above.) I have never visited Singapore, and can't say I've ever wanted to.

Lastly, I do not go by "Jimmy." At least not since the age of ten.






[ninety-fourth in a series]