My aunt messages and tells me to have my mom call her right away– My uncle and cousin have been killed in a plane crash. They were on their way to a fishing trip in Canada when their small plane rapidly descended in Catawba, Wisconsin. The news site reporting the crash said that 35 cheeseburgers and cheese curds were sent to the scene. The community wanted to rally around the firefighters. The passengers and body of the plane were found scattered around highway 111.
I try calling my parents phone numbers. I nervously pace around my apartment, frantically trying to call them. After an hour, I finally get through.
Breaking the news– telling my mother that her brother and nephew are dead is as awful as you think it is. Telling a woman, who is currently taking care of her husband, who has just battled liver cancer and is waiting for the call for a new liver is as awful as you think it is.
I take Oliver for a walk.
I scrub my kitchen floor on my hands and knees with a sponge.
I lay in bed and read a book.
I look up the news footage and sit through an ad, waiting to find out more details about what happened to my family. 6 people total, dead. Names are not yet being released.
I decide to get out of my apartment and go to Martha’s Vineyard to buy some eggs and try to act like normal human being for a minute.
As I’m sitting at the red light of Union and Fulton, I see a plane descending as it lands at GRR– all it’s passengers safe & sound.
The man with the ponytail ringing up my dozen eggs & can of Dr. Pepper asks how my night is going. I say “pretty good.”
As I’m walking to my car, a small plane flies overhead as fireworks pop and explode and glitter in the sky underneath it.
Mesmerized, I drive towards the fireworks as they increase in intensity. The finale is upon us– it’s 11 o’clock.
I start to make my way home. Stray fireworks explode here and there as people try to find ways to express their jubilation for the long weekend.
