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I was home, getting ready to go to work. (I had the afternoon/evening shift at the Architecture Library at Georgia Tech). ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
brian1789 had come home for something -- I think an early lunch. He said something about missing the launch, and wondered if he should turn the tv on to see if it was still being covered. Just then the phone rang.
"Hi, Dad," Brian said. Then, agonized and shocked, "Oh my God." He ran past me yelling "The shuttle's blown up!" and turned on the tv, and there they were. Those damned twin trails of smoke. We stood and looked in horror.
There had been space fatalities before, both Apollo 1 and in the Soviet program. Sixteen years later Columbia would disintegrate on reentry. But it was Challenger that made the deepest and longest lasting impression on my psyche.
I was married to a man who had wanted his whole life to be an astronaut, who would try and try again (getting far in the process) to be on one of those vehicles. I had been thankful he was not a test pilot, or in the military. Challenger shook my sense of safety.
I had to learn to let go of a lot of things. I had to decide that, whatever he was going to be, I would not stand in his way. It has stood me in good stead, so that when he heads off to the Arctic I can say "Have a good field season." When he talks of trying to get on an Antarctic expedition, I can say "Go for it. I'm behind you." I would even, were it necessary, move to Houston for him : ) (I bitch about his travel schedule, but it's not the field trips that get to me: it's all the trips to D.C. for meetings he may or may not really be needed at that drive me up the wall, even though I know that they are necessary.)
I am prouder than I can say of my explorer, who often thinks in terms of generations not of years, who wants, in his small way, to help mankind reach for the stars, even though he will not be around to see it.
And I think of those who have died trying to touch the face of God, and I say a prayer for them and for their families.
brian1789 had come home for something -- I think an early lunch. He said something about missing the launch, and wondered if he should turn the tv on to see if it was still being covered. Just then the phone rang."Hi, Dad," Brian said. Then, agonized and shocked, "Oh my God." He ran past me yelling "The shuttle's blown up!" and turned on the tv, and there they were. Those damned twin trails of smoke. We stood and looked in horror.
There had been space fatalities before, both Apollo 1 and in the Soviet program. Sixteen years later Columbia would disintegrate on reentry. But it was Challenger that made the deepest and longest lasting impression on my psyche.
I was married to a man who had wanted his whole life to be an astronaut, who would try and try again (getting far in the process) to be on one of those vehicles. I had been thankful he was not a test pilot, or in the military. Challenger shook my sense of safety.
I had to learn to let go of a lot of things. I had to decide that, whatever he was going to be, I would not stand in his way. It has stood me in good stead, so that when he heads off to the Arctic I can say "Have a good field season." When he talks of trying to get on an Antarctic expedition, I can say "Go for it. I'm behind you." I would even, were it necessary, move to Houston for him : ) (I bitch about his travel schedule, but it's not the field trips that get to me: it's all the trips to D.C. for meetings he may or may not really be needed at that drive me up the wall, even though I know that they are necessary.)
I am prouder than I can say of my explorer, who often thinks in terms of generations not of years, who wants, in his small way, to help mankind reach for the stars, even though he will not be around to see it.
And I think of those who have died trying to touch the face of God, and I say a prayer for them and for their families.
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You take something that is on your mind and you say it in such a way that is so touching and tender.
Thank you for sharing this.
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Their names will be written under other skies.
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