Recollections.......

I've been recollecting the past 20 days of my life remembering all of the little details I either didn't remember when they occured, or possibly dimissed because of the pain they might have caused. I'm left with a lot of hard memories of sadness, worry, anxiety and dread. Still despite all of this, PinF is able to recall many more happy, supportive, funny and hopeful moments. Conclusion? Life is good.

I left Florida full of dread and worry for what I would find, and for the most part my initial impressions proved true to my fears. Something I hadn't mentioned throughout this ordeal was the person I met seated next to me on the airplane as I rushed home to Philly from Florida. He was a guy about my age, he and I minded our own business for much of the flight until about and hour out of Philadelphia when we finally sparked some small talk.
"You live in Philly?" he asked
"No I'm just headed home to see family" I said trying to hide the true nature of my visit for fear of the emotions it would conjure just blelow the surface.
I asked him the same, he said he actually lived in Baltimore, to which I told him my brother did also. He said he had never heard of JahWorks, a fact that almost made me dismiss him as boring. Then he told me what he was doing in Florida.
He told me of his cousin, she was 38 married, with twin 3 year-olds. He said he just come from her husband's funeral. Apparently her husband was in the Bahamas for July fourth on his boat doing what the ex-Navy SEAL loved--fishing with his best friend, when he had a boating accident. He told me of how they had begun to realize their dream of building a house on a canal, and how he worked so hard to make that dream a reality. After many dangerous situations after 10 years in the SEALS, he had retired and began building a life for his family.

The whole dream was shattered in an instant when his boat hit an errant unmarked buoy throwing his cousin-in-law into the windshield and off the boat. His best friend survived and raised an SOS, unfortunately it was too late. This guy spoke of the crushing finality of the funeral and the utter shock of his grieving cousin and their twin children, not to mention the hundreds of friends who attended. He then pulled from his travel folder a picture of the guy taken almost prophetically an hour before his death as he stood on the bow of his boat looking west into a fading sun, his strong figure silouetted in the sun. This photo was used on the funeral mass card. It was almost eerie, as he gazed in the swirling sky.

My new friend then asked me what I was doing in Philly. I told him I was heading back because my father was in grave shape and may in fact not be alive when I arrived. "Wow" he said, and proceeded to push the button for the steward and ordered us two bloody mary's. We were quite the aisle that morning; him grieving and me dreading. We had a drink and he told me how he was off to Machu Pichu in Peru to think things over. I thought about this and wished I was going too, as I told him I had longed to see the lost city. He said that in fact I was going right where I should be, to have my chance to say goodbye. He was right. This all serves to reinforce what I said earlier, that too many times we don't get that chance, so in a very small way I felt a bit more prepared and at ease. I've been thinking of that woman lately, and her two children. They live not far from me. I've wondered how they've been coping. I hope they're finding some comfort in the fact that their daddy and husband died doing something he loved; because it's a hell of thing to leave and never come back to tell the ones we love, just how much we really do.