February 20, 1986.
Now THAT seems like such a long time ago. I was in 9th grade, and that was
my 15th birthday.
The other day I found something. It was a birthday card. Ruth and Glenn Hicks
had given it to me, and it was printed on parchment paper, and purported to be
a "Happy Life Insurance Policy" and it listed all the reasons why I
should celebrate and be merry for this birthday and for many more to come. It insists that despite all the negative
things that might be out there, that I deserve to be happy, and that I have the
right to pout if I am not.
Less than a month before my birthday the space shuttle
Challenger exploded on takeoff, sending parts of itself down into the Atlantic
with great plumes of smoke. The repeated
video footage of the event would imprint themselves on my brain, and to this
day I can see the three main trails of debris as they fell toward the water.
On board was the first school teacher to attempt reaching
into space, Christa McAuliffe. I was
sitting in English class, and Mr. Ramage, the principle, came to the door, calling
out Mrs. Parker, to inform her. We
didn't know Christa, but it didn't matter…
Two and a half months before the Challenger tragedy, I went
to school one day. Dennis, my
brother-in-law, came knocking on the door of my agri class, telling Mr. Watkins
that he needed to speak to me. I went
out into the shop, where I was told, "James, I don't know how to tell you
this, but your Dad is dead." You
know, it took a lot of courage to do that, to be so open and up front with me
about what was going on. I don't know
how much he knew of what had happened, but as it turned out, Dad and Ted had
gone to do some work that morning, and Dad told Ted that he wasn't feeling
well, leaving the tractor and going up to the truck to sit down for a few
minutes. When he didn't return, Ted went
looking and found him.
Tiny Goodman, the coroner, said that a team of the world's
best doctors probably couldn't have saved him – he had a massive heart attack
and his life was snuffed out just like that. I spent a long time regretting that I had not told him
"I love you" that morning as we went our separate ways. But really, how could I know?
I remember the cold, gray November day at
Owley Cemetery, where Pastor Bolt of the local Assembly of God, my classmate's father, came to speak. My uncle Wilbur, more like Grandfather than
uncle, and his daughter Sue (more like an aunt than a cousin) were there, along with others in the family, from
Mississippi. I remember Sue laughing
loudly at one point. I appreciated that –
as funny as it may sound. It meant the
world wasn't over, despite how I felt.
From November to February was a blur. I don't remember Christmas at all. In fact, other than the Challenger I don't
remember much of anything about it. But
since I found the card from Ruth, I know I had begun to work for her at the
elementary school in the evenings, doing janitorial work. I did that throughout the rest of high
school.
In the years since then, many things have happened. Glen got his kidney transplant, and it
failed, then got another that worked wonderfully, then had his own heart attack
that took him away from us. The last
year or so I worked with Ruth, it was just her and I.
After I graduated, I didn't know what I wanted to do, where
I wanted to go. I had some vague notion
that I might go to college and become a teacher, but I had seen folks who did
that and returned to school way too young, and I thought it needed to wait a while
– and besides I didn't really have any goals.
I finally joined the Air Force and after six years in uniform I went to
work in the same office that I had just left, but not in uniform any more. A year later I went to work for another
company, doing more of the same. A few
weeks ago, I hit my fifteen year anniversary with that company. I won't be there for the sixteenth. But, that's a story for another day.
I was thinking about that card. Looking at it this morning, I read Ruth's
note, written in her left-leaning script, and thought about how almost 27 years
ago, her hand touched the paper and wrote on it… She's gone now, along with
Glenn and a few others in my story.
I have letters written to me when I was in the Air Force by
my cousin Sue, the laugher, who passed on several years ago. She was the first I heard say, laughingly, "I'm
a poet, and didn't even know it."
I have notes and journals hand-written by my Mom, who has
been gone now for almost three years.
These treasures are special, but so hard to look at
sometimes. There's a magic in the
written word. The idea that you are holding
something once touched by another, reading words once written by someone whom you cannot
see right now.
I am thankful this season for the many blessings I have
today, and for the warm and happy memories I have, and oddly enough, for the
many hardships that have helped to forge the person I have become. According to my birthday card, I had at
least 1,000,000 (and counting) good wishes for my birthday and for all of the birthdays to
come.
And just in case we ever have to face the day when, for one
of us, tomorrow never comes, I want you to know that I love you.
