February 20, 1986

February 20, 1986.

Now THAT seems like such a long time ago.  I was in 9^th grade, and that was my 15^th 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.