National News Hits Close To Home

The husband of the president of the company I used to work for passed away earlier this week, in a horrific plane crash that also claimed the lives of another in the plane and three on the ground - two of them young children. Another child and two adults are severely burned.
Apparently the small plane he was flying experienced a fire in the cockpit, and they crashed into a subdivision while trying to make an emergency landing.









Can you imagine sitting in your kitchen, having a cup of coffee and the next thing you know there is a plane crashing through your roof? "Holy shit" doesn't even begin to describe it!

I passed the crash scene on my way to my office, about 5 minutes before it happened. In fact, one of my co-workers was late that day, saw the smoke en route and casually mentioned there was another brush fire off the interstate. I remember thinking to myself, "You need to pay more attention when you're driving if you miss a huge brush fire!!"

And when I got home that night, my son met me at the door and took my hand. "I'm sorry to have to tell you this, Mommy, but your friend from work was in an airplane that crashed and he got killed and there was a big fire." And he looked at me with his big, wide, innocent eyes.

There are so may layers of emotion around this!

I knew him (albeit not well). And now he's gone. We had just seen both of them at the races in Daytona last weekend, said hello and made small talk. I've been to parties and gatherings at their home. And now - poof! - he's gone. It just doesn't make sense.

And the other families....in the houses...somehow that seems even more tragic to me. Perhaps it's because I identify with them ? I can't stop thinking about it happening to ME. To MY family. If it was my husband and kids, what would I DO???? In all my thoughts and fears, I'd never yet imagined an airplane hitting my roof....

The funeral is in a couple of hours. I have no idea what to say.