What Happened Anyway

So what am I supposed to do when I get home from your funeral and I eventually open up all our envelopes full of cards and whatever else and someone gives me this newspaper article. Yeah, obituaries I guess I could handle. Hell, I wrote yours....I bet you never imagined in your whole life I'd be writing yours. That wasn't in our marriage counseling class. Here's what I found, I found that I couldn't stop writing. All the good things about you were endless, how do I pick just a few for the obit. It began as two pages and I don't remember what I cut it down to, but at that point I really didn't give a ....... Anyhow, I got several copies of your obit. from different people and from different newpapers, fine, but this newspaper article. Hmmm, I'm pretty sure I could've went my whole life without seeing what your crash looked like. I was told your radio transmission as you were going down, the guys on the ground told me you said, "tell my girls I love them." I know you always called us "your girls." Whether they just made that up to make me feel better, I don't know, but it contradicts what this article says. Not that it matters. It's the picture that gets to me. Between eye witness accounts, my experiences with helicopters, newspaper reports, your death certificate and this picture I can picture every word, every sound and every image. I can see it from the moment you dropped off your load of logs until you crashed into the ground. I don't know what your thoughts were, but I imagine what you must have been thinking the whole time. "Oh, I'll be okay, I'll make it" "What if I don't make it" "I can pull out of this" "Oh God, please save me" "I'm leaving behind a wife and three kids" "My mom and dad" "I'm not ready to go" "Please just let me live through this God and I will be the best person ever" "I'm sorry for leaving you family, I hope they know how much I love them" "I can't believe this could be the end" "Maybe I'll still survive once I hit, ____ (the other pilot) did"** "I'll be okay, just be calm, I can do this" "This can't be real" "I'm too young, I have my whole life in front of me"

I don't know, I think of a lot of things that you could've been thinking. I put myself in that crash with you and wonder what I'd be thinking. Maybe it all happened so fast you didn't have time to even realize the seriousness of it all. I just don't know, I wish I did, but I don't.

So how would anyone feel if they got this picture in the middle of all their "If you ever need anything" cards. I guess I'm glad I have it, maybe some day I'll be able to look at it without getting a pit in my stomach. Maybe some day I can look at it and I won't want to puke. Maybe some day I'll be able to look at it without recreating the whole horrible ordeal in my mind. Maybe some day I'll be able to look at it without having nightmares that same night. Someday.

**The companies other helicopter crashed just days earlier, the pilot escaped with non life threatening injuries.