Flight to Heaven

by Dale Black

  The questions that had hounded me before, the ones I thought had been held at bay, came back at me in a vicious assault.

  Why did I live? Why me and not the others? Why, God?

  I sat beneath the dome of stars, wondering with my questions, waiting for His answers.

  Was I spared because God had a special plan for me? Is that true, God? Do You? Did You save me so I could serve You? God, almost all of my friends have left me. I am no longer popular. I’m the guy in the wheelchair who survived “that crash.” I can’t play sports. I can’t remember what was said in class, no matter how hard I try. How am I going to do this, God? How am I going to go through life with this limp body and this lame brain?

  I paused, waiting for something, unsure what it was. Was I waiting for one of the angels on the shrine to come down and explain it all? Was I hoping for heaven to open and spill out the answers like gum balls? Was I waiting for a sign? A word? An audible voice? An inner conviction? I had no idea. Not even a clue.

  But I was there. I showed up. And I was there with my one hand raised to heaven. I was not one to beg, but I was begging. I’ve never known loneliness before, God. Is this a season in my life when You want it to be just You and me? If so, just say so. I’ll be fine if that’s what You want. Is that what You want? Please, do something, say something. Anything. Just don’t leave me alone.

  During those weeks I made many visits to the memorial, by myself mostly. Sometimes I would get in the car and drive there at night. The cemetery was closed at night, and I would drag my bent and broken body to the fence, crawl under it, casts and all, in order to spend a few hours alone there. I prayed there, flat on my back, looking up at the dome. I thought there, trying to dredge up something from my subconscious. And I cried there. For Chuck. For Gene. For the robust person I once was. For the shell of a person I was now.

  Dale and the Piper Aztec that he and Chuck flew regularly before the crash. Photo taken November 1969.

  I think I used the memorial as a focal point to help get my memory back.

  Doctors who worked on me talked with me only briefly about my memory loss. Dr. Graham didn’t seem as concerned with it as with the other losses I had suffered. Maybe it was because he felt he could help with the ankle and the shoulder and the face but not with the memory.

  Doctors explained that there are different types of amnesia. The two most common are retrograde and anterograde. The former type involves memory loss before the cause, such as a motorcyclist not remembering driving his motorcycle prior to his head injury. The latter has to do with the inability to store new memories after the cause, such as the motorcyclist not being able to recall his hospital experiences or conversations with family and friends who visited him there.

  Posttraumatic amnesia, which affects memory before and after head trauma, can be transient or permanent, depending on the severity of the brain damage. Some of my memory loss has proven to be permanent, some of it transient.

  The transient losses return at the oddest times and in the oddest ways, with no particular pattern. The memories are random. When they return and why they return are also random.

  The depth and duration of this kind of amnesia are related to how severe the injury is. Often people with head trauma may remember events, but they will not remember the faces of the people in the events. Another type of amnesia, called source amnesia, is when people can recall certain information, but they don’t know where or how they obtained the information.

  Since different parts of the brain store different types of memories, the more pervasive the damage, the more types of memories are affected. All this to say I suffered a lot of damage and as a result experienced a lot of memory loss.

  At the memorial that November day when my friend took me, I still had no memory of the crash. No memory of the three days in a coma. There were only sketchy memories of people and events in my past. There were no words from heaven. No answers. But it was important for me to be there. I’m glad I went. Something had drawn me there—it was almost a gravitational pull. I felt as if I were some small, inconsequential planet orbiting closer and closer to the sun, and the closer I got the more of me was being burned away.

  Somehow—in ways I can’t understand, let alone express—it felt good. Cleansing. Cathartic. And in some way necessary.

  I would be back.

  And I would keep going back until the shrine gave up the secret it was keeping.

  Or until I was burned away completely.

  12

  GOOD NEWS AND BAD NEWS

  The crash was almost six months behind me now. I had faithfully made the pilgrimage to Dr. Graham’s office more times than I could count. They were mostly routine visits. Routine X rays. Routine checks to see how I was healing, how I was holding up.

  Today was different. Today he brought out the usual X rays, but he said something most unusual. “Well, Dale, I’ve got good news and bad news.”

  I perked up, all ears.

  “The good news is that your ankle is doing surprisingly well.”

  “Great,” I said. “What’s the bad news?”

  “Well, it’s not really news to us, but it will be to you. It’s your shoulder.” Dr. Graham looked me straight in the eye, as if to see how I would take the news.

  “My shoulder? I know that I can’t move my arm now, but it’s going to be OK someday, isn’t it? It was just dislocated, right?”

  “It wasn’t dislocated, Dale, it was disintegrated. In fact, on the medical report I described your ball-and-socket joint as having exploded. We even found shoulder bone throughout your back, neck, and chest. It had blown to bits. And the muscles and ligaments all around that area were stretched way beyond their elasticity.”

  “So that’s why I can’t lift my arm.”

  “That’s exactly why. When we did the surgeries, we put all the pieces of the bone back together the best we could. We hoped that eventually you might gain some mobility. At this point, I’m pessimistic. You have no strength in that shoulder, and no control of it. We hoped by now you would. Not only that, Dale, but your shoulder muscles have been inactive for almost six months now. In that amount of time, injured, unused muscles grow brittle. Before much longer, you’ll have virtually no chance of ever using your shoulder and most of your arm again.”

  Not the news I was prepared to hear. Questions raced through my mind. What about my plans for flying, for ground school, for flight instruction?

  “So, what can we do?” I asked tentatively.

  Dr. Graham spoke enthusiastically now. “If we can go back a third time into the left shoulder area and take out some more slack muscle, I think you might have a 10 percent chance of lifting your arm about 45 degrees someday. That’s the best we can hope for, Dale.”

  My heart sank. “Ten percent?” I took a deep breath and with it came a surge of faith. “Well, Doc, a ten percent chance of success is ten percent more than God needs. Let’s go for it.”

  Dr. Graham looked at me soberly. “OK. There really is no other choice. The muscles are deteriorating rapidly. To tell you the truth, I’m very concerned about what we’re going to find when we get in there. It could be too late.”

  Dr. Graham had only one date open for surgery. If I didn’t take it, I would have to wait another month, which he thought was perilously late.

  This will be the last operation, I vowed to myself. But I had made that same vow so many operations before. I had already had twelve surgeries, and here I was agreeing to go under the knife again.

  When I checked in to St. Joseph Hospital, the staff was eager to see me, see the progress I had made, and was ready to help me get through the next phase of my recovery. In spite of the cheerful staff, the place had been a prison to me, a place of pain and shadows and horrible memories. I arrived as late as I could.

  When I got to my room, I noticed the curtains were drawn between me and my roommate. It wasn’t long before I learned why.

  “Nurse!” an angry voice blurted out. “Get in
here! Can you hear me? Nurse!”

  When the nurse came in, you could see the weariness on her face from having to answer endless calls like this from the crabby old man. He rattled off a litany of complaints: Dinner was cold. The meat was tough. Everything tasted bland. The TV wasn’t working right. The volume was set too low. Then another diatribe about his medication.

  Congratulations, Dale, I thought. You’ve got yourself a real winner this time. I wondered whether I would have to put up with this all night.

  Then, unexpectedly, the gentlest of thoughts came into my mind. I began to wonder about this man, his life, where he was spiritually. I wondered why he was so angry. An overwhelming love for him came over me and I felt compelled to speak to him. I prayed silently for him. Then I maneuvered myself out of bed, let go of the railing, and hopped across the room. I grabbed the curtain that separated us and wiggled it.

  “Hello, sir,” I said. “What’s your name?”

  The pause stretched for what seemed an eternity. Then he spoke, his words bristling with irritation.

  “Name’s Green. Joel Green.”

  “Well, my name is Dale Black, Mr. Green. I guess we’ll be sharing the same room. Nice to meet you.”

  He pulled back the curtain. A leathery, saddlebag of a face glared at me. “What are you in the hospital for? You’re just a kid.”

  I chuckled. “Yeah, I don’t know if you remember a plane crash back in July . . .”

  I went on to give him the short version of the story. He did, in fact, recall hearing about it on the news. And he recalled one of the headlines in the newspaper: “Fate? Coincidence? or Cruel Irony?” We talked about the aircraft, about the monument, and about the miracle of my surviving. And then I just blurted it out . . .

  “Mr. Green, do you know Jesus Christ? He’s the reason I’m alive. He has given me joy like I never knew before. I have purpose in my life now, Mr. Green. Do you know Jesus as your Lord and Savior?”

  He looked away. No answer.

  “Mr. Green, do you know about the free gift of salvation through Jesus Christ?”

  Silence. Then a softening of the face. Then tears. Lots and lots of tears. At last he spoke.

  “I’m a minister’s son.” His voice trembled. “I’m seventy-seven years old, and I’ve been running from God all my life.” He sniffed in the emotion and said with sadness in his voice, “It’s too late for me now, Dale.”

  “It’s never too late, Mr. Green. It’s never too late to allow God to take your life and turn it into something beautiful. God’s time is now. Let’s get forgiveness for the past mistakes. God says in His Word that when you ask Him to forgive you, your sins are thrown away, as far as the east is from the west. In other words, He forgets them! It’s great, Mr. Green. Give God your life now and you’ll forever be glad you did.”

  Again, silence. I wondered about his reaction, wondered if I had been too bold, too brash. But the love I had for him was overwhelming, just like the love I had for people the first week after the crash. A lot was at stake, I thought. Everything was at stake.

  At last, I spoke again: “Mr. Green, would you like to pray to God now and ask Him to forgive you?”

  Again, silence. Then softly, “I, eh . . . I’d like that.”

  Mr. Green didn’t quite know what to say, I sensed that. I also sensed that the walls of bitterness were coming down. I wasn’t quite sure what to do next, what to say, or how to say it. I wasn’t experienced at things like this.

  “Just repeat after me, Mr. Green.”

  He nodded, and I just relaxed and tried not to get in the way of what God wanted to do.

  “Dear God.” He repeated after me. “I’m sorry I’ve been running away from You.” And he repeated that too. “I should have been running to You.” He continued, word for word. “Lord, I’m a sinner, and I’m tired of running.”

  As soon as those words came from his mouth, he broke down and wept, then sobbed. I waited until the tears ran their course.

  “Father,” I said.

  “Father,” he said.

  “Thank You for Your unending love.”

  “Thank You for Your unending love.”

  “And for sending Your Son to die on the cross for me.”

  “And for sending Your Son to die on the cross for me.”

  “I invite Jesus into my life right now.”

  “I invite Jesus into my life right now.”

  “Take over the controls of my life.”

  “Take over the controls of my life.”

  “Thank You, God. Amen.”

  “Thank You, God. Amen.”

  He dried his tears, thanked me, and we talked awhile until the nurse came to check on him. I could tell by how he treated her that he was a changed man. The nurse could tell too. He was polite and gentle with her. And with me. After she left, he told me to call him by his first name. “Joel,” he reminded me. We talked into the night and became friends. More than friends . . . buddies.

  Bright and early in the morning I was prepped for surgery. Joel’s side of the room was quiet, and I didn’t disturb him. I was wheeled away. The last thing I remember is the nurse giving me a needle in the hip, and my words, which this nurse was used to hearing from me: “Carol, did I tell you that this is my last surgery?” She smiled. The smiled blurred. And I was out.

  “Wake up, Dale! Dale, wake up!” Dr. Graham was patting me firmly on the face. When at last I opened my eyes, he was smiling down at me. “Dale, listen! I can hardly believe it! There was no deterioration in your shoulder muscles at all. I had little to do but shorten the muscles. They were healthier than I could ever have imagined.” The doctor was so excited he couldn’t contain himself. “I think you may eventually have up to 45 degrees mobility out of that shoulder. I can hardly believe it!”

  “No, Doc,” I managed to say in my groggy state. “My . . . God . . . is a God . . . of completeness. . . . He will . . . restore my shoulder. I’ll be able to lift my arm over my head someday. You watch. You’ll see.”

  When I was finally wheeled back to my room, I added my shoulder to the list of wonders that God had performed in my life.

  A nurse came in to fluff my pillow and pull a blanket over me. I glanced over to say hello to Joel. His bed was empty.

  “Hey, where’s my buddy?” I asked, motioning to the other side of the room.

  The nurse shook her head. “Joel’s gone, Dale. I’m sorry. He died early this morning.”

  I was stunned. My breath left me. My thoughts left me. Then it hit me. Joel was in heaven. And I wasn’t sad. I vowed then and there never to be timid about sharing the Good News of Jesus Christ again.

  Suddenly I realized another reason why I was in the hospital. I thought of how intricate and complete God’s love truly is.

  It wasn’t just for me and my shoulder.

  It was also for Joel.

  13

  FROM HORRIFIC TO HEAVENLY

  In March 1970, I re-enrolled at Pasadena College, attending classes during the day. It was there in the dorm, around 2 a.m. on the sixteenth that I awoke with a start, drenched in sweat. The dream was so vivid that for several seconds I thought it was real. I was in the cockpit of the Navajo just as it slammed into the monument at an incredible speed. I was hurled through the air, falling several stories to the ground. My arms whirled violently in circles, trying to keep my balance so I would land on my feet. Before hitting the ground, I woke up.

  I had had this dream before—probably a hundred times. This time it was different. This time I felt it. I heard it, I smelled it, and I tasted it. The noise of the crash hurt my ears. The smell of burning oil filled my nostrils. The heat from the engines burned my flesh, and the taste of concrete filled my mouth. It was all so real. I was actually trying to spit pieces of concrete and marble from my mouth as I woke up. The smell lingered in my nose.

  I lay in my bed, terrified. I sat up and looked across the room at my roommate to see if the sound of the crash had wakened him, but he was fast aslee
p. I had to get up. I had to get out of there. It was too intense.

  I put on a heavy jacket, got my crutches, and maneuvered myself to the nearby football field. When I reached the 50-yard line, I put down my crutches and eased onto my back. Looking up at the stars, I paused to catch my breath. The starry sky seemed so immense, the glittering wonder of it all blinking down on me. This time, though, was different from the other times I had gone there to process my life. This time it felt as if God were reaching down to me, trying to speak through the silence.

  I had prayed so long for God to restore my memory. Was He at last beginning to answer that prayer? It felt like He was. And part of it felt reassuring. Another part felt unsettling. The crash had been horrific. And every cell within me, every space between the cells, had experienced the trauma. My body had become a projectile, traveling at 135 mph, and then stopping suddenly. Abruptly. Violently. And after the initial impact there was another—the seventy-foot free fall to the ground.

  Nothing more came that night.

  The next night, though, in the very same bed, more of my memory came back to me. I had been asleep and woke up with a start. Sitting up, I remembered some of the names of the people who had come by the hospital, names I had forgotten. My memory was coming back in fragments. I couldn’t control when they came, how many came, or in what order they came.

  The third night I remembered loading the plane the day of the crash. I recalled that we had performed two engine run-ups that day. I remembered the sound of the engines screaming at high rpms with the propellers out of sync. I remembered Chuck yelling at the last moment while trying to correct the erratic pitch of the plane.

  When the memories started coming back, they came back with a heightened sense of awareness. I felt the bumps in the ambulance ride, for instance. I heard the desperate wail of the siren. I smelled aviation fuel everywhere. In the ambulance, the smell of fuel was almost suffocating.