HOW TIME FLIES: (Jan. 28 2011)

On my way to work yesterday morning, my favorite radio station was talking about the memorial service for the astronauts who perished when the space shuttle Challenger
exploded exactly twenty five years ago. I could see it all again in my mind's eye, all the preparation, all the enthusiasm of having a school teacher in space, and the experiments she was to perform in space. The excitement was palpable. The news was all over the airwaves.
I could remember exactly where I was and what I was doing when the announcement came over the radio at work. I had just finished punching my time card and was in the locker room hanging up my winter coat. Then the news came over the airwaves and there was a hush. Then people ran upstairs through the side door to the hospital lobby where a television set was on for patients and visitors sitting around for various reasons. It was a cold morning and the news added an extra pinch of coldness to the morning.

I felt numb as Christa MCauliffe's face on television played before my eyes, as she talked to newsmen and women, on television with her class, with her husband and children and and with her elderly parents, so proud of their daughter. It could not be, I thought. It had to be a dream. It had to be the dream, but no, it was not the dream. I was standing in the locker room at work wide awake. It was real life. News kept trickling in as the morning progressed. The crash of the shuttle was caused by ice formed by the very cold weather. After efforts to clear the ice off the shuttle in Florida where the weather was usually nice during the winter, the shuttle was cleared to fly. I had never been to Florida then, but the television always showed nice sunny weather when there was snow all over the place in Boston. A co-worker was at that time selling land in Florida and the pictures in her brochures showed beautiful sunny skies and landscape, no hint of cold or ice. And now the space shuttle had just blown up in Florida because of cold weather and ice. Relocating to Florida three years later familiarized me with the occasional weather swings possible in the Sunshine state.

The explosion of Challenger brought such grief and disappointment, and then time did what it does best and people forget. It was the bombing of the Federal building in
Oklahoma city that brought back memories of such loss of human life unexpectedly, as in the case of the Challenger accident. Who would have known what was lurking in September 2001, the day the twin tower terrorist event which changed the world forever happened. Each time I travel through an airport now, I remember the guys who gave us the gift of airport security checks and reflect on the days, when one could run to the gate from the check-in counter and barely make it to get on a flight and when people could come to the airport and park just to watch airplanes land and take off. The good old days.

Humans beings will continue to do the best in their power tp prevent accidents and mass deaths. Once in a while,they will fail and terrible things happen and cause serious pain and damage and disappointment and always, God helps the human spirit to heal and go on. The crew of the space shuttle Challenger, a group of trail blazers, a number of firsts, lost their lives that fateful cold morning of January 28th 1986. Twenty five years already and the heart broken families have mended, built memorials and moved on with their lives.May the souls of their dearly departed continue to rest in peace. Amen!!!

Chinwe Enemchukwu
Jan 28 2011.