Contract for Silence?
When I choose to focus on the most horrific times in my life for whatever immediate purpose, there are several that always spring to mind. In my more sullen, selfish moments, the divorce from my first wife and its effects on my family takes hold. When reflecting on the inequities life and death present all of us, the passing of my grandmother and, later, my father consume my thoughts. I can, of course, now deal with both of those things through such contemplation and reflection. I believe that most of us process our experience this way. There is, however, one terrible, more deeply buried event that I very rarely bring to mind. That’s because its hold is dark and far-reaching, so all encompassing that I’m aware I might barely comprehend its meaning. I understand that much might be learned from it but, even in my advanced stage of life, I’m not certain that the emotional journey involved will be worth the trauma of the effort but here’s a beginning:
Some believe that a God, in his infinite wisdom, creates hurdles for us, tests that we must pass to understand the meaning of our existence. I choose not to accept this premise. It seems too simple and, for many, self-serving. How could one excuse such a God and the suffering and death his lessons have wrought through the ages? How can the object of overwhelming terror be, in the end, a positive plan for man? Before August 12, 1963 I had little appreciation of just how misguided such beliefs were. After that rainy night, I could never again take seriously any talk of His Plan. What I witnessed that late summer night changed me. My life’s compass was never as steady again.
Nancy and I were parked at curbside in her 1962 white Chevy convertible. The top was up because it had rained for the previous hour or so. It had been a pleasant evening out and she was dropping me off at my residence in Newark, Delaware. We were both in our early 20’s and would be married about a year later. We saw ourselves as responsible young adults but neither of us was prepared for what we were to experience as we bid our good byes, the drizzle having escalated into a full-blown downpour. A strong bolt of yellow lightning ripped the sky in front of us and was clearly visible near the peak of the Chevy’s windshield. We were parked facing south toward Elkton, Maryland. But the coursing path of the lightning came to an abrupt, flashing halt high up in the sky. I sat up straight in my passenger’s seat, exclaiming, “What the hell was that?”
We both knew that there was no building in the greater Newark or Elkton, Maryland area that high so the lightning could not have struck a building. We had seen nothing else in the area because of the dark clouds and intense rain that preceded the bolt. Nancy and I could only turn to each other, completely baffled. “That lightening hit something, I know it,” I told her. She agreed and we continued staring straight ahead into windblown clouds in the blackened sky in front of us. A few cars passed us from the opposite direction, projecting their lights into our car and our shared quiet. We sat together in dead silence , seemingly hypnotized by the absence of an answer. “Could it have been a plane?” Nancy whispered in my direction. My immediate response was “No” because of the severity of the weather. I mean, who would have been flying through that storm? And then the answer was thrust heavily in our laps, the ugliness of its truth filling each of us with a desperate sadness.
Our stares were interrupted by a rising orange glow on the horizon. It began slowly enough but then rapidly expanded in a mushroom-like cloud extending far up into the sky before us. “Oh my, Jesus,” I cried out. “That was an airplane that was hit! No doubt about it now.” Nancy tried to speak but could not. I could hear her moaning and crying next to me but the plane itself, its impact, made no sound. As the cloud rose into the air, my imagination went to places I wish it hadn’t. “How many had been on board? The worst, however, was the image of their last moments of life; prisoners of all ages in an out-of-control metal missile and surely aware of their fate. My chest and shoulders tighten even today as I think of it. My fingers pause warily on the keyboard and I tense at the remembrance of the horrid toll.
Some of our friends and acquaintances who heard of the crash drove to the scene that night, no doubt hindering emergency crews in the area. I left Nancy to drive back to her home, both of us realizing there was nothing that we could do about the situation. Those who had rushed to the scene returned later with stories of the impact site that were filled with lurid details of nearby trees filled with clothing, suitcases and worse. Their callousness left me speechless. I was reminded of another group whom I had once seen, earlier in my life. They were gathered around a tomato truck that had emptied its contents when the driver had miscalculated a curve in the highway near my own home. While the driver sat slumped behind the wheel and ambulance sirens wailed in the background, the group of misfits quickly stuffed spilled tomatoes into their own car trunks. Who can explain such behavior? Maybe G.S. Sullivan came closest, commenting that “Man, though well-behaved, at best is only a monkey shaved.” Princess Ida. (1884)
For many years I had mistakenly believed that the plane involved was an Eastern Airlines flight out of North Carolina which had departed earlier in the day from the Virgin Islands. My research, done in preparation for this writing, led to the discovery that it was actually a Pan American Airlines flight: number 214. There were many differing versions of events in the newspapers during the following weeks but the most memorable was the argument over whether lightning could have caused such a tragedy. I recall that experts claimed that it was not possible. I stood ready to refute that opinion and would have volunteered to do so if the issue had not resolved itself. It seems that so many, like ourselves, had witnessed the lightning strike that the FAA finally accepted it as fact. I later learned that protective “static wicks” were ordered as standard equipment on passenger planes as a result of the government’s acceptance of the lightening scenario. So here, in this case, eyewitness testimony as to Flight 214 was accepted as reliable and that extensive safety changes were mandated as a result. In stark contrast, the numerous eyewitness accounts surrounding TWA Flight 800 that crashed off Long Island in 1996 have all but been totally rejected by the CIA and FBI. Indeed, eyewitness testimony was barred at every hearing held on the matter in the years following. Many, if not most, of those eyewitnesses swore that a missile had been racing toward Flight 800 in the moments before its explosion. Those who rule out the missile theory remind me now of the experts’ opinions in 1963.
Today you unfortunately share in our long nightmare. Millions know the full range of emotions that Nancy and I held inside for 38 years. The terrorist-propelled flights on 9/11 have driven through Towers, into faraway fields, the Pentagon and, sadly, our national consciousness as well. I never wanted anyone else to comprehend our own extended grief over the passengers on flight 214. Now it seems the entire world must endure the bite of a claim of God-driven wrath. This time it’s shamefully and purportedly in the name of Allah. This time it’s intentional and not merely a freak of nature. And finally, this time we were all so much closer to its horror; not at a distance behind a rainy windshield.
Maybe all of this simply reinforces the principle that misfortunes, when asleep, are not to be awakened? On the other hand, a compelling argument can be made that it demonstrates that hurricanes, earthquakes and other human tragedy only temporarily do what governments of laws aspire to: create an equality among us wrought of raw, shared emotion.
I’ll not revisit this topic soon in this forum or even over coffee. Now that we can agree the terror of our experiences is shared, surely we can be bound together in reverent silence as well.