22 June 2012
I remember once I asked my mother about my grandfather. I was probably about seven. I asked her "so how did my grandpa die?" and I don't remember her answer. Over the years I gathered bits and prices of information about his death. Here was my story.
My grandfather was in the air force. After a while of moving around, he came here, to Arkansas to teach at the air base. One day, he was showing a few of his students how to do a trick, because he was a pilot, and his plane somehow blew up. Whenever I imagined it I always pictured a bright blue cloudless sky and a little brown and green, perfect palm tree. There were two college age guys on the ground looking up with shaded eyes at their amazing instructor do a fantastic loop in the sky but them the plane just blew up. That was it.
But the real story wasn't like that. He really was teaching at an air base. But he wasn't a pilot. He was a navigator. He was flying in a plane showing students how to navigate. And something went wrong with his plane and it blew up. I don't know what went wrong. But there was no little palm tree. Now college guys with shielded eyes. No cloudless, perfect sky.
I still don't feel like I know the whole story. But this did have a point. Not everything tragic is out of a story book. Not everything was a childhood dream about the sad death of a hero. Sometimes it's just about a beloved father and a mess up in the preparation of a plane. Not everything is what you dream up in your head.
Opuss № I