A rambling post about death

I have a somewhat morbid fascination with man-made and natural disasters. As a little kid, I used to pore over The World Almanac, memorizing statistics about the worst railroad accidents or plane crashes or mudslides or hurricanes. I could care less about the financial toll of some of these disasters; the human toll was what piqued my interest, which is not as sick as it sounds. I think everyone has some kind of curiosity about death because it's the one thing you can't really experience first-hand and then describe.

For me it's unexpected or accidental deaths that completely engross me. When I read about deadly accidents, I wonder what it would be like to be in that position. What would my thoughts be were I in a situation where death is suddenly an imminent certainty? What if others were with me -- how would they react to this same realization?

These thoughts rise to the surface whenever some tragedy is headline news; recently, it's been the West Virginia mining accidents and that car wreck here in Florida that killed seven children. I read as much as I can about accidents like these, hoping to get some glimpse of the victims' final moments.

Before you think I'm completely sick, realize that I'm not getting off on tragedy. I feel sad for the victims and their families and I think about my own mortality and how everything can slip away so quickly.

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Every January, I think about the Challenger space shuttle explosion. I don't remember when it actually happened; I was five then, living in southern Ohio with my mom (dad was in grad school), and I wasn't in school yet, so I was still in little-kid-egocentric land. I do, though, remember the first anniversary of the disaster. I was in Mrs. Brown's Kindergarten class, sitting in the middle of the room during morning announcements, when our principal Mr. Gilchrist came over the intercom and asked the school for a moment of silence in remembrance of the shuttle. After the announcements were over, Mrs. Brown explained to us why we had to be quiet for those few moments. She showed us pictures of space shuttles and the seven Challenger astronauts, including Christa McAullife, the teacher in space. I remember Mrs. Walsh, my second grade teacher, kept a laminated article about McAuliffe on the wall behind her desk. As the years went on, I learned more and more about what transpired on that cold January day in 1986 -- from o-rings to the shuttle program itself. I think there may have even been a very special episode of Punky Brewster about the tragedy.

My grandfather, a high school physics and calculus teacher, was one of the 12,000 applicants for the Teacher in Space program. Surprisingly, he's not the reason I think about the explosion every year. Rather, it's the knowledge that the astronauts did not immediately die when the shuttle started to tear apart 73 seconds after launching. It was another 2 minutes and 45 seconds later that the crew's cabin hit the water after arcing away from the shuttle. The last words on the cabin's flight recorder, were "Uh-oh." They were alive for nearly another 3 minutes.

It's such a grim thing to think about, I know, but I warned you that I'm a little morbid. Just the idea that seven people died in such an avoidable way and that they were aware of their impending death...it just does something to me...makes me sad, makes me mad at NASA, makes me respect astronauts even more...

My lack of sleep lately has completely killed my concept of time, so I was a little surprised to look at the calendar yesterday and see that it's already the end of January. I was even more surprised when I realized that it's 2006, and, therefore, the 20th anniversary of the accident. I hadn't seen anything in the news, which is surprising -- everyone is pretty plugged into what's going on on the Space Coast here in Florida. Maybe it's not that big a deal to anyone any more, although I don't know why. Where have the last 20 years gone?

Do you remember where you were when you heard about Challenger?