As in:
So much of what you read about plane crashes would lead you to believe they’re a bad thing. And, to be sure, that was Xavier’s first panicked reaction when he realized that the pilot was going to try to land the 737 even though it was clear there was a thunderstorm trying to land on the same runway.
They all felt the downdraft hit the wings, causing the plane to drop a good thirty feet. At that point the nose landing gear hit the water of the white-capped bay, and although the wheel bounced up sharply, it was not in time to clear the rip rap. The collision tore off the landing gear and sent the nose of the plane into the runway, amid a shower of sparks and steam.
At least that’s what the witnesses at the airport remembered. Xavier was out cold by that time from the force of the collision and he entered his concussion holding the last, reasoned and coherent thought that this was it–he was going to die in a fireball of aluminum, luggage, and burning jet fuel.
Four people did die in the crash, but he wasn’t one of them. Aside from a bruise on his forehead, and soreness in his back and knees, he quickly recovered to his old self, only with a new perspective. It was actually a perspective that he needed because had been suffering from depression and anxiety. Indeed, his first appointment after the short vacation was to be a visit with a new therapist.
What had bothered him was his growing inability to cope with so many things to prioritize and think about, a veritable archipelago of problems and dilemmas that increasingly exhausted and befuddled him. And, yet, his second chance at life, at 44, came with what the smack to his head had also given him. It was as though someone had hit the restart button on his brain. Suddenly the sad choices and conundrums he’d come home to were not only manageable, but he could see them clearly enough to make them shrink and all but disappear.
When the $100,000 settlement check from the airline came he taped it to his window and let it hang there for a few days. Then he cashed it and anonymously donated all but $35 to an orphanage. He spent the remainder on range balls, cat food, and a box of chocolate for his mother.
No comments yet.