Challenger

"Twenty years ago today, I took my 1 year old baby girl, put her on the floor of the den with some toys, got my 3 year old son, turned on the tv and sat down with him on the floor to watch a historical event, the lift off of the space shuttle Challenger.

Phillip was really looking forward to seeing this, he has always been interested in science, even then science shows were his favourite things to watch. We sat there and watched as the astronauts walked past the cameras. He knew which one was Christa McAuliffe, the teacher who was going into space. We listened to the countdown, watched Challanger lift off and start her journey.

I held Phillip on my lap and listened to his excited talk about space, astronauts and what we were seeing and then to my complete disbelief and shock we watched as Challenger exploded. I couldn't say anything, I didn't know what to say. Then my little boy turned to me and with eyes as huge as saucers, filled with pain, he said "they're all dead, aren't they mommy?"

Phillip doesn't remember the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger. Most people don't remember things that happen that early. Three is very young and lives get filled with all kinds of things, both good and bad, happy and sad, important and unimportant. I remember though and it is one of my strongest memories of my son's early years. They were busy, filled with day to day moments that swiftly turned into years but I remember a little boy who wanted to see a wonderful, exciting event and instead saw death and surprisingly, at least to me, recognized it.

As parents we are the keepers of our children's early lives and we remember for them the things that they have forgotten, their first footsteps, their learning to count or read, their stumbles and their successes. And we remember the events that shaped their lives in ways that are not apparent. One such event is the explosion of the Challenger. And so for Phillip I remember and mourn lives lost. We cannot know what difference a successful flight of Challenger would have made to a world or a little boy. We can know however that we changed, the world changed, our children's future changed. And so we remember Dick Scobee, the shuttle's commander, pilot Mike Smith, astronauts Ellison Onizuka, Judy Resnik, Ron McNair and Greg Jarvis, and Christa McAuliffe. As regular readers of this blog know, I do not believe in "God". I can however appreciate references to him when beautifully written and so here is President Ronald Regan's quote which says so well what I feel today, "We will never forget them, nor the last time we saw them, this morning, as they prepared for their journey and waved good-bye and 'slipped the surly bonds of Earth' to 'touch the face of God." I remember",I whisper.

Are you listening?