Taking Flight

by Solmonson, Sarah

  Could I ever lose you? Was it age or years of collected memories that kept a person alive or was everyone forgotten in the end? Could a daughter ever forget that once upon a time she had a father?

  Between handshakes and hugs I offered to drive A back to grandma’s house. It was a short trip and he was quiet the whole way, unusual for my constantly chatty cousin. With his developmental delays A was usually happy, but he sat emotionless at my side.

  When we got to the house A went into the living room and sat on the couch. I was looking for the television remote for him when he asked me, “Why is everyone so sad?”

  I sniffed. “Because they miss Uncle David.”

  “But why are they sad?”

  “Because we can’t see him anymore. And we loved him. And when people we love die it hurts.” I kept my back to A, unwilling to look at his innocent face.

  “I’m not sad. Uncle David is in Heaven with Jesus. I know it.”

  I had found a faith a while back but at that moment it was the last thing I could think to rely on.

  “And I can see him. He’s right there.”

  I turned around at the certainty in A’s voice. “Where? Where do you see him?”

  A pointed down the hallway, toward the bedrooms. “Right there.”

  I followed where he pointed. I didn’t see anything in the shadows but the hairs on my arms stood up nonetheless.

  “Right there,” A said again. “He’s with Grandpa. Don’t you see them?”

  I don’t know if you were really in that hallway. But I did know that I could never, ever forget you. Your ghost would follow me forever, whatever that might mean.

  Remember the phase I went through where I refused to get out of bed in the morning? Ok, truthfully if you asked my husband I’m still in that phase – I set two alarms and play them out until the last possible second. But do you remember when I was ten or eleven and Mom would literally have to drag me by the heels out of bed? You got so annoyed with our song and dance that one morning you picked me up and dropped me into a bathtub of freezing cold water. It was too funny for me to get angry at you, just like you were too busy laughing at my shrieks to stay angry with me.

  I could have used you and the bathtub on the day of your funeral. I wasn’t asleep when Mom came to get me, but I wasn’t awake, either. It was stuffy in the bedroom but I was still tucked safely under the heavy quilt. Mom knocked on the door. “Time to get up, sweetie.”

  “I don’t want to.”

  “I know. But you have to.”

  I dressed in black pants and a black tank top. I was never one for dresses, and as it turned out I was probably the most comfortable person at the burial. The temperature was already in the eighties and climbing.

  Before we left the house I closed the bedroom door and wrote you a note. All I remember writing was how I didn’t want it to be my last letter to you. I wrote what I thought someone who felt sorrow would write. But everything was too big to be felt, too swollen. I folded a picture of me as a little girl inside one of those airplane rides at Chuck-E-Cheese into the note. I was undoubtedly in that plane because you had told me it would be fun.

  We had one more peek into your casket before the funeral started. I slipped the note and photo by your arm, trying not to think about the gross things that would soon be happening to the paper and your skin.

  Mom and I got rock star seating during the service. The two of us sat close together on an overstuffed couch in the front row while a pastor who had never met you read the eulogies our family had written in a thick southern accent.

  Becky, Diana, Mom and I each wrote a eulogy. I don’t remember what a single one of them said, except for mine. I have never been fond of having others read the things I write aloud. It tends to make my ears bleed. But even I had to admit that the words I had written for you in less than an hour sounded like the voice of someone much older than sixteen. It was like hearing someone else speak, someone else acknowledging saying goodbye to their father.

  In my eulogy I told the mourning crowd that I didn’t hate the thing that took you away from us. It was what they wanted to hear and what I needed to say. If I didn’t hate it, if Mom and I still believed your pursuit of flight was the right thing, then no one was to blame for your destruction. More than the need to make everything okay was an undeniable truth – the plane was such a large part of all our lives. Hating the plane would be like hating you.

  I don’t remember who carried the casket out. I do remember walking past everyone behind the casket, so many people were crying, wiping at their eyes, looking at Mom and I with pity.

  Mom and I rode in a limo to the cemetery. A parade of cars followed us, and throughout the little town of Wentzville families who were still on fourth of July vacations had to wait longer at stop lights while we inched by. They watched the flashing lights of the police car, they all peered into the tinted windows of the limo. Their faces told me they were relieved it wasn’t them. I wanted to roll down the window and shout that it could be them any second, that a week ago I was just like them. I wanted to scare them, to spread my resentment at the family I’d been robbed from.

  It was miserably hot at the cemetery. Without a cloud in the sky the sun beat down mercilessly on all of us. Your casket hovered over the open grave on poles with tons of flowers on top. The pastor said a few more words, none of which I remember, and then it was over.

  You would think that getting a funeral over with quickly is a blessing, but in my opinion the funeral is the easy part. It’s easy to keep busy when the adrenaline is pumping and there’s so much to do. The hard part is the sudden whoosh of air that leaves your lungs when it’s all over, when there’s nothing left to do but start living.

  We had the obligatory sandwich and dessert feast in a church basement following the service. Some people need to eat their grief away, but not me. The food made me sick to my stomach.

  I was tired of talking to people and accepting condolences that didn’t make me feel better. I left the basement almost immediately after we arrived and went out to the parking lot.

  Pam and Danny are the reasons Mom and I kept our sanity during those last two hours. Our best friends when we lived in Lake Sherwood, Mom and Pam are still like two teenagers, inseparable and always giggling. Danny followed me outside and though we hadn’t seen each other in a few years and regardless of the fact that he was suddenly several inches taller than me, the magical bond forged in childhood remained. He didn’t say much and neither did I; instead we just walked lap after lap around the cars, working up a sweat, Danny getting yellow dust all over his fancy black and white shoes.

  And just like that my memories of that day stop. I don’t remember leaving the lunch, I don’t remember saying goodbye to Pam or Danny. Maybe that’s why sometimes I feel like I’m still living that day on a constant loop, because I’m hoping for a revelation of memory, some new detail I can relish in to take me back to when it was okay to walk out on a group of people without looking rude.

  Pam and her kids have become our Missouri family now. We are able to visit them at least twice a year, thanks to cheap flights on Southwest airlines. During each visit we go out for a night of Long Island soaked karaoke fun. Inevitably a moment in the night comes along when we talk about you. Unlike the family we let go of, it is always okay to tell stories about the past with Pam, Angi and Danny. There are lots of stories to share, impressions you made on a young boy who had an absent father that will last forever. “David was one cool dude, man,” Danny will say, shaking his head with a sad smile and lifting a glass with his heavily tattooed arm. “To David. One of the good ones.” And I will lean in for a hug from someone who is just like me, who all these years later can’t believe you are still gone.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  I was rummaging through the kitchen for a snack when Dad called out to me from the living room. “Sarah! Perfect timing. Come watch this movie with me.”

  “No more History Channel, Dad.”

 
; “It’s not. It’s a movie and you’d really like it.” He turned around so he was facing me. “Give it ten minutes and then I’ll quit bugging you.”

  I shrugged and gave in, figuring I’d be back up in my room by the first commercial break. “What is this great movie that I just have to watch called?”

  “The Memphis Belle. It’s about -” “Oh, let me guess,” I interrupted. “It’s about a plane!”

  “I don’t just watch movies about airplanes.”

  “Really? Then what’s this one about?”

  Dad sighed. “An airplane.”

  I slapped my hands against the couch. “I knew it! I totally knew it!”

  The movie started, and I was surprised when several commercials passed without me feeling the need to fall asleep or leave the room. The Memphis Belle was an airplane that fought in World War II. The Belle had made twenty-four successful missions over the skies of Europe. One more mission and the crew, none of whom were much older than me, could all return home.

  The night before their final mission, one of the crew read a poem from his journal. As a girl with notebooks and diaries filled with poetry I felt a connection to these characters, more than I ever thought I would have felt to people in one of Dad’s airplane movies. I had no idea if they were going to live or die. I was completely sucked in, much to Dad’s delight.

  During commercial breaks, Dad and I started to talk about World War II.

  “Did you know that Grandpa was drafted for the War?” Dad asked me.

  I didn’t.

  “Remember that tattoo on his arm? He got that before he went into the army. Said he didn’t trust dog tags to get him home if he died, so he had his name and address tattooed on his forearm.”

  “Where did he fight at?” I asked, shocked at the idea of my Grandpa going off to war.

  Dad laughed. “He didn’t. The way he told it, he was on the train headed to boot camp when the War ended. He got sent home.”

  The Belle made it to her final target, but due to smoke obstruction the crew couldn’t confidently release the bombs. The crew made the decision to circle back, low on fuel and surrounded by enemy fire. I watched their companion planes get shot and fall from the sky, burning and screaming to the ground. The Belle made it to the target, dropped the bombs, and somehow made it home.

  When the movie was over I was forced to admit to Dad that he was right, a painful endeavor for any teenager. I should have kept my mouth shut of my approval of his airplane movie because after that night, The Memphis Belle became another staple in our airplane obsessed household.

  I never considered that maybe Dad’s fixation with The Belle had less to do with the airplane and more to do with the fact that we had shared the film together.

  Dad began to ask all of my friends if they had seen The Memphis Belle. If they answered no, he would try his hardest to make us watch it at some point during their visit. I began coaching my friends on what to say when the interrogation began.

  “Have you seen ‘The Memphis Belle?’ ” my intimidating father would ask, raising his dark eyebrows and locking eyes with my friend.

  “I have and it is a great movie,” my friend would reply robotically.

  “I see,” Dad would say, shaking his head at me. “And what’s your favorite part?”

  “There are too many to remember,” the new friend would answer, glancing at me to see if they’d gotten their lines right. Dad would call me a brat, roll his eyes and hand over the television remote.

  Before the days of Google and Amazon and Netflix instant view, if you wanted to find a movie you had to go shopping at real stores and hope for the best. If they didn’t have what you were looking for you had to track down a manager who would then call several other stores to try and locate the movie you were convinced no one sold.

  I know this because Mom and I spent years trying to buy a VHS copy of The Memphis Belle. The film had several actors who would go on to make some very famous movies, but at the time it wasn’t a readily available film. We called video stores and asked how much to buy their rental copy, which was likely sitting on a shelf collecting dust. No one wanted to sell. We called Targets and Wal-Marts but it seemed no chain stores carried it. We scoured garage sales and tent sales in the parking lot of Blockbusters. It seemed as though we would never own a copy of Dad’s favorite movie.

  Just like looking for Dead Guy music, the Hunt for The Belle became another family tradition that kept us on the edge of our seat, kept us wondering if today would be the day we would track down our prize. If there had been Amazon in the late 90’s we could have the movie delivered to our door by the next day. While that certainly would have been easier, I don’t think it would have been nearly as fun.

  A video store an hour away from our house came through with a brand new copy of The Memphis Belle a year into our search. Mom and I snuck off to buy it, fully intending to wait until Christmas for the big reveal. But when we returned home we were both obnoxiously giddy and our energy tipped Dad off.

  From that day forward, The Memphis Belle was in reach of the VCR. Whenever Dad watched it, I stopped what I was doing to join him, always the co-pilot by his side.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  While I was burying you my friends were going to 4th of July parties and making out on blankets under warm, colorful skies. I knew that when I came back from Missouri certain, obvious things had changed but I never anticipated losing my friendships. The bonds of friendship are ironclad at sixteen; we would die for each other. If we didn’t hang out every Saturday we felt like the world has stopped spinning.

  You liked my friends. They were good kids. I can promise you that in the time I spent with them we never drank or did drugs. To my knowledge, none of us that had coupled up had sex. We were content to play trivia on Wednesday nights at our local coffee shop, go sledding in the winter and swimming in the summer, and watch tapes of old Saturday Night Live skits while eating popcorn and overdosing on Mt. Dew. When the immediate crisis of your death had passed I expected to fall right back into place with them.

  The first time we all hung out after the funeral they told me we could do whatever I wanted. It was a gorgeous summer day, perfect for going to the lake, but instead I asked them to watch The Memphis Belle. For all the years you had teased us about your favorite movie none of them had actually seen it. I knew I was going to have to watch it sooner or later, and I had gone through so much alone. I wanted to get The Belle out of the way surrounded by people to protect me from the pain I was risking.

  We closed the shades to block the sun from the television screen. I carefully took the movie from the cardboard box and hit play. I was wearing one of your flannel shirts and jean shorts, resting my bare legs across my boyfriend’s lap. As the movie played I watched my friends’ reactions, waited for their laughter, relieved when they didn’t seem to be bored.

  But then it was over. And they were ready to move on.

  I got stuck on pause for a long, long time.

  Sometimes you can’t go back. Sometimes you have to be alone to learn how to live and breathe in a world where everything has changed. Those friendships that I never thought I would lose faltered, then broke apart all together.

  But not before they saw The Belle.

  I made sure of that.

  I have to be honest with you: as a child, I dreaded our summer trip to the Oshkosh Air Show. I liked flying when it was the two of us, but Oshkosh was overwhelming. The grounds at Oshkosh stretched on endlessly, taunting you with miles and miles of airplanes. You insisted on taking pictures of every single one (they all looked the same to me). Then you had a million questions for the pilot. Just when I thought you were ready to move on you would make me stand in front of the plane for a picture. I would smile because you told me to, but on the inside I was trying not to scream.

  I was so grateful when you and Mom started to send me for my summer visit to Missouri during Oshkosh week. Of course, karmic punishment would dictate that the last trip you
would make to Oshkosh would be the one I would have actually enjoyed.

  The captain of the real Memphis Belle came to Oshkosh. You brought me home an autographed t-shirt and photo of you next to captain. I am still so jealous of you – and it serves me right for being such a brat about going to Oshkosh.

  I rarely come across people who know about The Belle, unless I’m the one who tells them, or force them to watch the movie. But life is full of surprises and when I least expect it, The Belle comes up in conversation and I find someone else who is a fan. Most recently it was a co-worker. Naturally I told him about your meet and greet with the captain. Always the proud daughter I brought in the faded photo. I’ve learned there will always opportunities to be reminded of you, just when I think I’m beginning to forget.

  The day I saw The Belle on Netflix I put it in my queue (not that you know what that means). Of course I have it on DVD (not that you know what that means, either) but I feel better just knowing it’s close by. I try to watch it at least once a year. But sometimes I can’t finish the whole thing. It’s funny; I can go to your grave and my eyes stay bone dry, but watching those boys waiting to take off makes my heart break.

  You told me that I had to go to college so I wouldn’t feel like a fraud in life. “I work with people who have their diplomas framed in their office. They deserve to have their jobs. But me, I don’t have that piece of paper. I shouldn’t have what they have,” you would say, berating yourself in a way that I am all too familiar with.

  I always knew I would go to college because I was one of the kids who liked school. But I knew immediately following my senior year was not the right time for me to go. I’d held it together through too many changes and I was exhausted. I wanted a year off to rest. I’d get a job and save some money and then go to school. But Mom wouldn’t have it. She held tightly to your wishes that I get a college education. Had she been in a better frame of mind she would have let me take the break I so desperately needed. But her fear of me not going to school, of the both of us letting you down in any way, forced me out the door in the fall of 2002.