The other night I sat down beside my husband who was watching a program entitled, “Why Planes Crash”. I don’t know why I decided to continue watching the program with him, but now I am sorry that I did. Why would they have a documentary about terrible loss of life? Why would they strike fear in the heart of people who have to fly. I’ve never been afraid of flying before, maybe I should be.
After the program was over I felt sorry for all those people, for all those families who are missing their loved ones. I rushed around to get my children to bed, clean up the dishes and get ready for the next day. Finally I had a few moments of peace. This is when I got hit with a wave of panic. My heart started racing and I wanted to breathe deeply, but felt I couldn’t. Why was I feeling this way? I know that I have been overwhelmed with life and the long, cold winter is really taking it out of me, but why this? Nothing bad had happened.
I laid down in bed, trying to go to sleep. My mind raced. I wasn’t thinking about the TV program, but I kept seeing a small plane fall from the sky and crash into the ocean. You see, when I was little my family went to an island off the coast of New England to bask in the sun and play in the sand. As the day wore on the fog rolled in. We had come to the island in our small family airplane. Now that it was foggy, we were getting nervous. So we started packing up.
Then we heard the low drone of a small plane flying over our heads. I can remember my dad saying, “Something is wrong. It is too low.” Then it climbed straight into the sky and did a loop and fell head long into the ocean. Crash! right before my young eyes. I was terrified. Now I couldn’t get that picture out of my head.
I slept, but had horrible nightmares. I woke up crying three times.
I am better today, but tired. Amazing the hold the past has on our lives. Tomorrow I will write about the time that our commercial jet liner’s engine was on fire and we had to make an emergency landing in Cuba.
Meghan
Finding Hope's Sunshine 