Death in the Air

Many of you have probably heard or read about the pilot who died in-flight. The story is here. The plane landed safely, and doctors think he died of a heart attack.

As I was reading I came across a sentence that broke me. The journalist included a statement from his wife, who was of course distraught: “The family lived in Texas, Ms. Lenell said. She said that her husband had called her from Brussels just the day before and told her that he was bringing her home some chocolate.” I found myself weeping. When death comes, those simple little gestures become so poignant. They are arrested mid-air, still filled with the expectation that life will be here tomorrow.

I Am Back, Sad and Weary

I'm back. I watched my brother and his wife bury their only child. Whatever problems he had been through, he was putting himself back together, and he was excited about enlisting in the Marines. He was to go to the recruiting office the day he died. Despite being fatally injured, he somehow managed to get out of the car and search for help while reassuring the other young man with him all the way to ER, "Hang on, it'll be okay. My dad's coming." He was so beloved by the priest that there were times I wasn't sure he was going to make it through the service. My nephew was very close to him, and had never hesitated to confide in Fr. K., had never held back the bad or the good. Fr. K. said that A. had demons, but that even in the worst of times he continued to express a desire to be a priest, and that A. had always wanted only to be closer to God. It was so hard to watch my brother and SIL go through this and to see this young man with the whole future before him lying in a coffin.

I would like to share something A. wrote two days before his death:

This Is the Best Day

God has brought be such joy
over the past few months.
Through prayer and sacrifice
many of my dreams have come true.
My faith even in the times of trouble
has saved me and redeemed me.
Thank you God for all the gifts and
bounties you have given me.

The funeral mass was beautiful, painful as it was. I'm not Catholic, so it was unfamiliar territory to some extent. Even though I couldn't participate in communion, I found the ritual lovely and powerful. There were two women cantors with the voices of angels. I'm not familiar with many Catholic hymns, and there was one they sang that moved me deeply, called Be Not Afraid. I found a version of it on YouTube, which I will leave you with:

Death in the Family

Yesterday my 20-year-old nephew, A., died from injuries he sustained in an automobile accident. I am waiting to hear when the funeral will be held. Dear Husband and the girls are headed for LA. I will be headed for Philly, either by car with my other brothers or by plane. A. was my fourth brother's only child. He survived childhood leukemia--a real miracle child for them. I last saw him when my mother died, 7 years ago. He was a devout child and wanted to be a priest. He was sweet and smart. He was very troubled in recent years and I gather his behavior became erratic and there were many problems. I don't know the whole story and probably never will. I know it caused my brother a lot of pain. And now this.

September 11

On September 11, 2001, I awoke and did a second pregnancy test, which was positive. This put me in a thoughtful mood. A little excited, a little nervous. I was missing my mom, who had died in June, and was sad she wouldn’t get to see this granddaughter. I had to take DramaQueen (not yet two) to her daycare and get to work. I wasn’t in the mood to turn on NPR, which I always listened to on the drive. When I walked into our daycare provider’s home, I was ready with my usual greeting, which quickly evaporated. She had the TV on and the phone to one ear. While I was trying to make sense of what I was seeing on TV, the second plane hit.

I wasn’t sure what to do. I got in my car, called Dear Husband, turned on the radio and drove to work, crying the whole way. There was supposed to be a very important company meeting, so everyone showed up but nobody worked. We all sat in the one room with a TV, and then they let us go home and rescheduled the meeting.

I never really recovered a sense of joy about being pregnant; it seemed to be tainted from the start, and I wasn’t really surprised that it didn’t go as it should. Looking back, it seems to have ushered in a season of sorrow that stayed on for years. I’m sorry that my first memory of Firecracker is so tied up with a national disaster, and that every subsequent challenge to her health has seemed like an echo.