![]() The Challenger families did not want the disaster to be the end of the crew’s mission. ![]() What beauty this life has! How could I ever want to leave it? Leave them? For the first time in a long time, I felt alive and utterly loved.īy summer, the cause of the explosion was found: Faulty O-rings had allowed hot gases to leak into the external fuel tank. “Sweetie!” I shouted, giving him a squeeze. A single daffodil bent forward as if to welcome me to spring, to new life. Sounds consoled me-birds singing and children at play, a concord of voices laughing in the distance. The tense, tight feeling was gone, completely gone. I stepped outside and a ray of sunlight fell across my back. I heard a voice, not in my ears but in my heart. The next morning, instead of awakening to fear and worry, a deep, indescribable calm fell over me. Can’t you help me through this too? I pleaded. I had been so blessed! God, you’ve brought me so far. in curriculum and instruction from Texas A&M University, landed a great teaching job, had two amazing kids and an angel of a grandson. I graduated from high school at 16, married Dick, earned a Ph.D. Lying there in bed that April night I thought about how my life changed dramatically after reading that book. Every night I asked God for strength, for help in rising above my circumstances. Faith wasn’t discussed in our home, but something in me just knew Dr. Peale wrote that God was in control of our lives, that he could help us in our times of need. One day, when I was nine, a neighbor stopped by with a basket of tangerines and The Power of Positive Thinking, which my mother left on our dinette table. I dreamed of escaping our day-to-day struggles, but I saw no way out. ![]() We moved around a lot (15 times in 10 years) and my grades suffered. My mother was mentally ill and frequently hospitalized, and though I was a child myself, I was often left in charge of my two younger brothers. I thought back to a time when I felt equally helpless. But if you won’t take me, then give me strength to live. How could I go on without Dick? How would I ever feel loved again? Please, God, let me go to heaven with my husband, I begged. I tossed and turned, rubbing my throbbing eyes. My mind was in overdrive, the same thought echoing over and over again: Why? There was no reason, no acceptable explanation for why my husband was no longer here. Safe in their guest room, I crawled under the bedcovers. My neighbors Barbara and Fred helped me pack a bag and took me to their home. “If words could bring back my husband, I would speak volumes,” I said, then closed the door and fell to the floor, sobbing. One afternoon in April, I opened my front door to flashes of lights and questions from reporters about the investigation into the disaster. Even as the tragedy faded from public view I felt as if I would never really live beyond that moment when Challenger disappeared from the sky. I managed to struggle through the weeks following Dick’s funeral. Inside I was dying, stunned, uncomprehending. I made decisions mechanically-memorial services, arrangements for visitors. Somehow I put one foot in front of the other. What was home without Dick? Without my husband, my partner, my best friend and companion for 26 blessed, wonderful years? ![]() That night, NASA arranged for us to return to our homes. They could not have survived an accident like this.” ![]() There, officials said what we already knew. I was a widow.Ī bus took us to crew quarters. I kept trying to turn the clock back to that last conversation about icicles, as if I could change things. In one terrible instant our lives had been completely and irrevocably changed. In stunned silence, I looked at him, at Kathie. Oh, God! No! Not my husband! Why, God, why? Flaming debris burst into the perfect sky as the orbiter shattered into a million pieces. All these years later I can still vividly see what came next: The Challenger exploded. ![]()
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