Loose Ends

By TAD BARTIMUS

When I was growing up we had two unbreakable rules in our family: we never went to bed mad and we never left the house in the morning without kissing each other goodbye and saying, "I love you."

My mother insisted on those rules because my father was a pilot and she was afraid that the only man she ever loved would die in a plane crash. Besides frequently reminding us that we'd better behave because one day Daddy might not come home, Mom also warned us that if something awful happened, we shouldn't have any "loose ends."

Loose ends meant emotional upset, such as dragging out an argument or not expressing love for one another. Mom's rules created an undertow of anxiety about Dad's safety and convinced us that, because he was a pilot, he was uniquely endangered and had a higher risk of dying on the job than our friends' fathers.

Since our father was a military officer we were schooled in the protocol of disaster: remain calm and polite and wait for orders. That's what we and several hundred other Air Force brats did on an otherwise ordinary day when a transport plane crashed on takeoff just a few miles from our school. As smoke plumed skyward we sat rigidly in our classrooms, dreading to find out who would be summoned.

When the principal beckoned my brother and I out of our respective classes, a uniformed officer in the hallway informed us we were being driven home and said he would accompany us. "Yes, sir," we replied, as we'd been taught. Although I'm sure I was shaking and terrified, my only memory is thinking, "there are no loose ends."

My dry-eyed, tight-lipped mother met the Air Force staff car as it pulled into our driveway and then we all went into the house to wait for whatever was going to happen next.

Within minutes, my father walked through the front door in his flight suit. There'd been a mix-up. A fellow pilot and good friend had asked dad to swap aircraft on that routine training day because he wanted to get off work early. My father had obliged. There'd been no time to change the crew manifest. Instead of being aboard the doomed flight, my father was among the first rescuers at the crash site. There were no survivors.

When my husband married me, he initially teased me about the high drama of our daily partings: "I love you," I'd say, often several times, before going to the grocery store. After several close calls for both of us, on the highway and in the air, he now says, "I love you" at least once before he leaves the house in the morning. We also settle arguments before we go to sleep, even if it means staying up 'til 3 a.m.

I'm sure that when the seven Columbia astronauts lifted off from earth there were no loose ends. All who loved them knew they were going on a dangerous mission and that such expeditions call for a peaceful, loving send-off.

But so do all partings. My father had to fly through tumultuous heavens to get home to us. Yet everyone's travels are uncertain. I learned that one day when our neighbor, an insurance salesman, was killed in a car accident on his way home from work. To return to his family, he only had to drive a sedan down the same tree-lined street. One day he didn't make it; my dad always did. Which is why I say, "I love you," when I go to the grocery store.

© 2003 The Women Syndicate

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