Listen to Andrew’s Story
“I didn't know Heather, but I sat there and thought about her mom and her dad and the other people's lives who had been changed forever that day. And I tried to make sense of it. I couldn't, I haven't.”
- Andrew
Charlottesville community members gather on 4th Street for a candlelight vigil following the Unite the Right car attack that happened the day before.
“This is what community looks like!”
August 13, 2017, at 6:14 PM
Interview Transcript
Andrew
When I look at that picture, I see people who’d shown up the day after August 12 to pay respects, trying to make sense of what it is that had happened the day before in Charlottesville. When I look at myself, I was there doing the same. I see a man who is exhausted in every possible way. I was sunburned and dehydrated, and yet I felt a strong need to get up and go there and try to wrap my brain around what had just happened. I didn't know Heather, but I sat there and thought about her mom and her dad and the other people's lives who had been changed forever that day. And I tried to make sense of it. I couldn't, I haven't. The only thing I remember doing and thinking was that it was a changing moment in my life and was a changing moment in the lives of so many people here in Charlottesville. And that I wanted to find some way to serve this community as it tried to grapple and heal and find its way out. And that's what I did. I decided there was, in my life at least into the future, there was going to be a finding a way to serve Charlottesville and the people in Charlottesville. I didn't know how that would be. But that's how it changed me.
Music credit: Anthony Earls / Any Other / courtesy of www.epidemicsound.com