My father died fifty years ago today.
He
was the second officer on United Airlines Flight 553 from
Washington National Airport (today Reagan National, DCA) to Chicago
Midway (MDW). The 737 was named "City of Lincoln." This is back when commercial airplanes had names, not merely tail numbers.
As you might guess, I was very young. I have few memories of him. Much of what I know is from what relatives have said. I know he loved flying. Being a pilot was his dream. He only lived it a few years, but he lived it. Not everyone lives their dream even one day. He had four years of it, or about 1,500 days.
I looked up the information about the crash, so I could synchronize this post. Even after all these years, reading about it made me cry. It's a good reminder that when you lose people you can heal, but you are not the same. "Healed" does not equal "unhurt."
Undoubtedly, there are many ways this changed my life. I learned early that Bad Stuff can and does happen. If my father had lived, the household I grew up in would have been different. My mother would have been a different person. I probably would have had more siblings. I might have moved to a different part of the country. My father loved Denver. He dreamed of moving there, buying land, setting up a homestead with a runway, and building an airplane from scratch.
When I see on the news that someone has died and left behind children, I know a little of what will happen. At first there is a blank place at the table. Then the blank place goes away. The new normal settles in and the old normal fades. It is the big milestones — weddings, graduations, marriages, births — where you notice who isn't there. In a world where there are many things we can have customized, to our own tastes, at a moment's request . . . there are some things we can't have.
I'm not sure how young people today process such things. I've heard the term "safetyism." We want policies so nothing bad can happen. We want to believe nothing bad can happen. But it can. The trick is learning to live both ways. Can you live without fear of the bad paralyzing you? At the same time, can you live in the moment without regret, in case there are fewer tomorrows than you anticipate?
There are a few things I remember. I remember being afraid of him when he rightly scolded me harshly for doing something he told me I should not do. I remember sitting on his lap as together we stayed up late making a picture that used all the pretty colored pegs on the Lite Bright. I remember riding in the back of his truck and being on his sailboat. I remember him touching the ceiling in my bedroom and telling me someday I would be tall enough to do so, too.
I remember him driving us to one of the airports — probably BWI — and parking in the grass just on the other side of the fence at the end of the runway. (I'm sure security procedures being what they are, you can't do this today. The world has changed.) We sat there and watched the airplanes take off over our heads. They were loud! Daddy loved airplanes. He taught all of us from a young age that airplanes were the most amazing thing in the world.
He liked to build things, such as model airplanes, but I don't remember building anything with him other than that Lite Bright picture. He was very competitive — relatives told stories about his strategy for Monopoly. I don't remember playing a game with him, although surely we must have played Candy Land or Chutes and Ladders? He collected NASA flight patches. When I digitized his slide collection a few year ago, I saw he had a good artistic eye. Did I get my love of making things, playing games, looking to the stars, and artistic bent from him? Was it in the DNA all along, or was there more to it?
Would we have built an airplane together, played Settlers of Catan, attended a space shuttle launch, or visited a great art museum? Or would it all have gone terribly wrong some other way?
It is a decade or more since I've smelled it, but every once in awhile, someone would wear the same after shave. I don't even know the brand. For years I simply knew some people smelled like Daddy.
I have no videos of him. I have scant few pictures, since he was the one behind the camera! I have no recordings of his voice. I don't know if I'd recognize it if I heard it.
I was too young to have ever bought him a birthday card or a Christmas gift.
It is the holiday season. Last night was the final full moon of 2022. The end approaches of another cycle around the sun. Make good memories!
Comments