Taking Flight

by Solmonson, Sarah

  I went to Augsburg, a small private college in Minneapolis. Augsburg was close enough to home that Mom and I could see each other as often as we needed but far enough away that I would live on campus and get a taste of independence.

  Your straight-A daughter (well, except for those pesky math courses) was failing out by October. I couldn’t study, I couldn’t sleep, and I couldn’t handle all the people. I didn’t know how to socialize. I didn’t want to drive away potential friends by telling them the truth about why, unlike them, I didn’t have any photographs of my high school friends on my walls. I didn’t want to be in a position to tell them about your plane crash because if I did I feared that I would become the odd person out, just as I had in high school.

  I moved out of my dorm before the first semester ended. I was humiliated as I loaded boxes into Mom’s car. I felt like a quitter and I didn’t need Mom to remind me that had failed you. But even worse than failing you was feeling like I had failed myself, the person I should have been. That girl would have graduated in four years, with honors. Any time I had to drive by Augsburg I felt a burning shame in my stomach, the brick building became a mirror that forced me to see the truth of my shortcomings.

  I began taking photography classes at Hennepin Technical College in January 2003. I had taken photography in high school to fulfill a requirement but, as it turned out, photography and grief go hand in hand. I would shoot a roll of film and escape for hours in the photo lab developing my own prints. It was pitch black in the dark room, allowing me to let my guard down. I came away from class smelling like chemicals, just like you used to when you were building your plane. I picked up on the class quickly and became quite good. I was even accepted into a special class that was held after school let out. For four hours a day I had my own station in the darkroom to work on whatever projects I wanted.

  I earned my associate degree and for a few years after graduation I talked about going back to school for my bachelor’s but came up with a million excuses why it wasn’t the right time. But if I was being honest, I was afraid to try. The shame of dropping out of college was still very real.

  I was also working full time, and there were limited options for non-traditional students looking to return to school. It was in the search for an after hours program that I ended up back at Augsburg. Augsburg was the only school in the Twin Cities that had a program that seemed to be designed with working adults in mind. I enrolled in the fall of 2006, determined this time to see my studies through to graduation.

  Exhaustion is, by definition, being a weekend college student. I would work from six in the morning until three in the afternoon, then drive thirty minutes to campus. I would take an hour nap in the car, eat dinner, then work on homework until class began at six. When class finished at ten, I would drive the forty-five minutes home and get immediately into bed. The alarm would go off a few short hours later. I did this schedule for three long years.

  I wouldn’t have survived night school without Mom. I would call her on my ride home from class and she would stay awake with me, letting me rant about how tired I was. She listened to me cry out my fears of never getting a job in our horrible economy. She would listen when I needed her to and say just the right thing when I was desperate for encouragement or an energizing kick in the ass. She would remind me how proud she was of me. She told me to keep going.

  The last class I took at Augsburg was a double course on post World War II history and literature. After studying for four weeks in class (on Friday nights, the worst night to have school) we would spend fourteen days traveling through Germany and Poland. I hadn’t expected to have the opportunity to study abroad as a non-traditional student and jumped at the chance to end my hard work overseas.

  On the first night of class my professor stood at the blackboard and asked us to tell him what came to mind when we thought of World War II. Responses came quickly: Nazis, Auschwitz, Hitler, Pearl Harbor.

  The professor wrote the answers on the board. “Anything else?”

  I opened my mouth without thinking, habit taking over. “The Memphis Belle.”

  The professor gave a small smile. “Why The Belle?”

  I felt my face turn red. I hated speaking in class. “I was raised a pilot’s daughter. The Belle was the first connection I had to World War II.”

  “Can you give us a bit of detail, for those who are unfamiliar with The Belle?”

  I told the story, hearing you in my words. The professor wrote my memories on the board, where they stayed for the rest of the night.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Dad paid for everything in cash. If we didn’t have the cash for something we didn’t buy it. Even if we did have the cash, Dad was a tightwad. He hated to spend money, a result of being raised by Depression era parents.

  But when Christmas came around, Dad broke free of his frugality.

  When I woke up on Christmas mornings there would be three sets of presents under our tree, wrapped in three different papers. One was from Santa, one from my parents, and one for my parents from me.

  Mom has admitted that the large pile of gifts I received was mostly Dad’s doing. “We would save up and then go to the toy store while Grandma watched you. I thought we were done, but then David would want to take a second look around. He’d find a puzzle that he thought you would like or a stuffed animal that you would snuggle with. Before I knew it our cart was twice as full as we’d intended.”

  There are a hundred photos of our Christmas mornings, me smiling in front of the tree, surrounded by gifts, wearing Care Bear footie pajamas. I handed out the gifts from under the tree, one at a time, making us all take turns.

  As a child, the presents I bought for my parents came from a sale my elementary school held at the beginning of December. The teachers set up stores in the gymnasium and while the parents chatted in the hallway the students went shopping. We were given the illusion of independence, making our own decisions about how to spend our money away from protective eyes of adults.

  Nothing at the stores cost more than a couple of dollars. Hand towels, ash trays, coffee cups, coasters – it was all crap. But I didn’t know that. My friends and I would visit each store to make sure we picked out the best trinket for our parents. At the checkout desk we would help the teachers volunteering wrap our gifts in tissue paper. Then we would meet our parents in the hallway and tease them about how they had to wait until Christmas to open their gifts.

  After elementary school my parents began to take me shopping one at a time to buy presents for the other. Mom and I wandered the mall looking for anything that had to do with airplanes. Our finds typically accompanied a part or tool for Dad’s plane that Mom ordered from a supply store. One year we gave him a leather flying cap, goggles and wind scarf. He put them all on while still in his tan bathrobe and didn’t take them off for the rest of the day.

  Dad and I had a set routine when we went shopping for Mom. First we stopped at the bookstore. Not being a reader, Dad took my word for what book Mom would want. Then we went to a department store where Dad would dutifully pick out a piece of jewelry.

  Last but certainly not least we would buy a pair of size five slippers. Mom wore her slippers every day, even in the summer, and she expected a new pair once a year at Christmas. Dad and I would put our hands inside each one, testing the squishiness and the softness to find the most luxurious pair on the shelf.

  Our routine changed drastically when I became a teenager.

  When we got to the mall I wanted to go to the bookstore while Dad picked out jewelry. “I’ll meet you there,” I said, turning to leave, not thinking anything of the separation.

  “Sarah!” Dad said, too loudly. “You can’t go there alone.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because you can’t. Now come on.” He pulled on the sleeve of my coat.

  “I go all the time by myself. I’m not a baby.” I tugged my arm back.

  “You come with me or we are going home. I mean it.” He was
speaking in his scary voice, the one that prevented me from sassing him the way I did Mom. A few shoppers were staring at us. I felt embarrassed and angry, so I stomped off ahead of him. We shopped in silence until we came to the slippers.

  “What ones do you want to test out first?” Dad asked, acting as if nothing had happened.

  “I don’t care. I just want to get this over with.”

  Dad glared at me. “What a selfish brat.” His eyes scanned the shelf for a moment and then he reached out and grabbed a blue pair of slippers. This time it was his turn to storm away. At the check out Dad and I had such pissy expressions on our faces, the clerk didn’t even bother to wish us a Merry Christmas.

  “How did it go?” Mom asked when we returned home.

  “Ask Dad. I’m going to my room,” I said, dropping my coat on the floor.

  “Hold on.” Mom looked at Dad, who was sitting in the recliner taking off his shoes. “What happened?”

  “Sarah’s angry because I wouldn’t let her go into a store by herself.”

  Mom was quiet, but the look on her face gave her away. Tentatively she said, “David, Sarah goes shopping with her friends all the time. It’s just the mall. She’s a teenager, after all.”

  “But – ” Dad began, but stopped when he looked over at me. I stood still and met his gaze. He seemed confused, staring blankly at me as though he hadn’t seen me before. He looked defeated. I couldn’t bear to tell him “I told you so”. He tied his shoes back up and retreated into the basement, licking his wounds. It’s bad enough to realize your child has stopped needing you like they once did; it’s even worse to be the last one to catch on.

  That Christmas there were only two sets of presents under the tree. No one said anything, but I knew Santa was never coming back.

  My parents bought a piano when I was a little girl. I don’t know what inspired the purchase because neither of them knew how to play. My guess is someone was selling it very cheap and they wanted to add some sophistication to our small country house. The piano took up residency in our formal family room, next to the uncomfortable couches that no one ever sat on.

  From the moment the caramel colored instrument came off the pickup truck I was itching to know how to play. The top of the bench seat lifted up and inside there were stacks of piano books. The books were soaked in a delicious musty smell from sitting untouched for God knows how long in the bench. I would take the books out, prop them against the music stand and bang on the keys, annoyed that I couldn’t reach the three gold pedals on the ground. I made my parents regret their purchase almost immediately because I would not leave the piano alone. I believed I was making beautiful music.

  The piano came to Minnesota with us to decorate our new family room. By the time we moved I was old enough to know that I didn’t really know how to play. My cousins had been taking lessons and I sounded nothing like them. When I asked for lessons my parents told me they would think about it. What they really meant was that they couldn’t afford them. I was jealous of every friend I made that could sit down at my piano and play an intricate melody without batting an eye. I wanted to scream every time those friends complained about having to go to a piano lesson. I would have gladly gone in their place. I’m sure I made my parents feel awful every time I whined about how unfair it was to have a piano that no one could use. I was too young to put into perspective that I had a mother who had stopped working so we could go to the beach together in the summer, who volunteered to be a field trip chaperone when my class went to the art museum, who could pick me up from school if I got sick at the drop of a hat. My parents had decided that having more time together as a family was worth many sacrifices, including piano lessons.

  Chaska Elementary offered band class beginning in the fifth grade. At orientation I asked if there was a piano in the band, hoping that I would finally get my lessons. There wasn’t. So when I filled out the information card that asked me what my first choice of instrument was I wrote ‘saxaphone’. If I couldn’t play piano like my cousin Stephanie then I was going to jam on the sax like Lisa from The Simpsons.

  I was given a trumpet.

  I was disappointed at first, but as practices continued I realized that trumpet music notes were the same as piano music notes. I began to set my sheet music up at the piano and with a pencil I wrote the names of the notes of each key. It wasn’t long before I was playing my band music on my trumpet and the piano. I didn’t sound anywhere near as good as my friends and I couldn’t play with both my right and my left hand, but I was playing.

  When little kids are learning to play an instrument the music they make sounds more like a goose honking while maniacally shaking a noise maker than an actual song. Even when they get Hot Cross Buns sort of right the repetitive drone of those three notes can make ears bleed. My parents were lucky enough to listen to me learn both the piano and trumpet. Quiet evenings were a thing of the past. Even Dad’s whirring saw blades didn’t drown out my honking.

  I joined choir in sixth grade and added horrific out of tune singing to my nightly repertoire, completing the sound annoyance trifecta. I got better as I got older, and by the time I was fifteen I had quit band to pursue choir more intently. I was in several singing groups throughout middle school, including ensembles that required auditions. I took my choir binder home and practiced relentlessly at the piano. I could play a little with my left hand and I began to buy books filled with pop music. Unlike my friends who took lessons I was free to decide what songs I wanted to learn. I never stopped asking for lessons but I didn’t let the fact that I couldn’t have them keep me from trying to learn on my own.

  A few days before Christmas 1999 my parents loaded up our station wagon for our drive home to Missouri. Packing had become a lot simpler since they didn’t have to hide the Santa presents from me anymore. I was so anxious to get to Grandma’s house that I didn’t notice how large one of the gifts was until everything had been unpacked and we were relaxing around the Christmas tree.

  Mom and Dad were overly excited on Christmas morning. They shook me out of bed and walked me half asleep into the living room. “Isn’t the kid supposed to wake up the parents?” I grumbled, wrapping my robe tighter around me. I sat down in the center of the living room, Christmas morning coaxing me awake: the tree that shimmered from the layers of tinsel my Grandma used to decorate, the smell of bacon coming from the kitchen, everyone in their pajamas with no grander plan for the day than opening presents.

  “Open this one,” Dad said. He pushed over the largest present under the tree, the biggest present I’d ever been given.

  “It’s mine?” I asked. I assumed it was for Dad, another clunky, expensive part for his plane.

  Dad nodded. “Come on, open it!”

  I sat up on my knees and took a deep breath. I peeled back one corner of shiny paper, revealing an unmistakable picture of black and white keys. “Oh, my God! It’s a keyboard!” I squealed, ripping the paper away.

  “Now you can play whenever you want for as long as you want,” Dad said, a proud smile on his face. “It comes with earphones and a stand. We thought you could put it by your desk in your room.” When Mom and Dad took over the living room in the evening I had to stop playing the piano so they could hear the television. Having a keyboard at my disposal meant I could play all night if I wanted.

  “I love it,” I said, hugging the large box.

  “There’s more,” Mom said from her spot on the couch. She handed me an envelope. “Sorry this took so long.”

  I took the envelope from her. Inside was a homemade certificate, surrounded by pink and purple music notes, for piano lessons.

  I think of all the teenagers who hate their parents, and while I acknowledge that some of those teenagers have very, very good reasons to be angry, most of them don’t. Most teenagers don’t give their parents the chance to shine.

  I loved my parents to the moon and back that Christmas morning, but not because they had given me an extravagant gift. I loved them becaus
e they listened to me. They knew what I liked and what my passions were. Better still, they believed in me.

  I received one more gift – a Sarah McLachlan piano book. I stayed up all night penciling in the notes I didn’t know for the bass clef, and by the time the morning light shone through the bedroom window I could play the first bars of “Angel”. I played them over and over, tears in the corner of my eyes as the notes melted into each other, harmonizing at the command of my uneducated fingers.

  After breakfast I headed back to the bedroom to keep working on the keyboard when Dad stopped me. “Bring it out here and play. I want to hear what you can do.” While I set up the stand Dad poured himself a fresh cup of coffee. He cozied up next to Mom, who was reading a book in her new slippers, and listened intently to my song.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Mom and I spent a long time living our lives following the same traditions and standards that had been followed when you were alive. At first we didn’t know any other way to behave. Later, when we realized we were becoming a family independent from you, we clung to what we thought you would have wanted us to do out of fear, regardless of how painful holding on had become.

  We had been traveling to Missouri for Christmas for six years, so without really thinking about it, we booked our plane tickets to Saint Louis for our first Christmas without you. Neither of us had bought presents for the other, but it didn’t matter. We were in the throes of shock and depression; just keeping our heads above water took up all our strength. I doubted I would ever be able to buy Mom her slippers again.

  We arrived in Saint Louis on Christmas Eve. Grandma and Angela picked us up from the airport, and I saw the disappointment in their eyes when they hugged us hello. It was like we tricked them. As if the last six months had passed and they had believed during that time that they had merely fallen out of touch with you. Our presence, our thin bodies, tired eyes and fake smiles broke their comforting lie. I guess we all have moments when your loss unexpectedly slams into our hearts and becomes just a little bit more real; that moment came for your family when you didn’t return for Christmas.