eyes to the skies

On February 20, 1962, my mother sat me down in front of our black and white TV and said, "watch this. You will tell your children about it someday. It's history!"

John Glenn's little capsule orbited the earth three times and splashed safely into the Atlantic ocean. I'm not sure I realized what I was watching, only my mother's words echoing in my mind: tell your children you saw the first American orbit the earth. Very exciting, very impressive in 1962.

Twenty-five years ago, January 28, 1986, space travel had become so routine that I didn't bother to watch the Challenger lifting off from Cape Canaveral. In fact, I was running errands with my one and two-year-old sons when my car radio delivered the horrific news: seven astronauts, including a public school teacher, had perished as the Challenger exploded just 73 seconds after lift-off into the deep blue Florida sky.

It shook us all. Sending astronauts into orbit didn't guarantee their safe return. Christa McAuliffe, ecstatically ready to instruct her students from space, never got the chance. Those children, watching as I had years before, witnessed a horrendously different outcome. As a mother of young sons, my heart broke for the seven families left to grieve.

Today, my tiny sons now grown, I pause and remember Ellison, Mike, Christa, Dick, Greg, Ron and Judith. I pray for God to comfort the hearts of their wives, husbands, and children who grew up without them. I trust they died doing what they loved most. Why else risk your life?

I thank them for sacrificing for something bigger than self.