Thirty-five years have passed since September 28th, 1991.
One of us was a world-class pilot, and the other was a rudderless young man with no clear direction. The pilot’s incredible ability couldn’t overcome the habit he practiced. That’s how I ended up looking into the September sky and seeing his parachute floating down, a grey-silver jacket inside it.
I met him only in death.
That day rarely touches me deeply. Not beyond the cerebral and superficial. This September infected me with a desire simply to get past it.
When it does touch me, it is a chill on the back of my neck.
You can do everything right and still fail. You can also do the most minor thing, a thing you’ve done countless times, until the universe notices and adjusts your arc in life without any consolation or care. If you do two things wrong, the odds don’t double. They become infinite.
I can’t stress enough how gifted this pilot was. His family in Illinois was legendary for their flight simulators. Some reports indicate he ran out of fuel; I’m not certain whether that was true. Whether he jumped or fell out of his plane, he didn’t have part of his parachute attached. I’m certain he did it a million times. Those two things had the final say in his life. How the plane and pilot landed on the ground basically in the same spot still bewilders me. The capricious luck that kept either of them from killing me is never lost on me.
Some of you rightfully caution me about climbing trees, especially in the dark, or about meandering while the world sleeps. There’s no such thing as safety. It’s exactly like when I went skydiving; there is a slight risk, of course. It is the appearance of relative danger that makes it enjoyable. It’s surrender as you fall out or jump.
It is VERY rare for me now, but sometimes, I find myself hesitating at doors. Thirty-five years ago, I jumped up and ran out of my bedroom to investigate. I opened the door to mayhem. I get tenuous glimpses of it in dreams that immediately fade. Not too long ago, I heard a commotion and ran out of my apartment and into another one to see someone needing CPR. Pun aside, I went into autopilot.
I had two tremendous lessons like this.
Both deaths happened in September.
Both of them died unexpectedly in their early 30s.
Both of them were within feet of each other, separated by decades.
Most of the time, they are simple memories from a lifetime ago. Other times, I look up into the blue of the September sky and wonder about probabilities. If it can happen once, it can happen twice. And also, that no matter how big or small the world seems, it is happening to someone right now.
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