HomeWe, the Challenger children and all the children of public disasters, are hearing your hearts break, holding your hands and hugging you from afar. You are not alone. Our nation mourns with you. But yours is also a personal loss that is separate from this national tragedy.
We hope this letter will bring you some comfort now or in the future, when you are strong enough and old enough to read it. We want to prepare you for what's to come and help you on grief's journey. We want you to know that it will be bad - very bad - for a little while, but it will get better.
Why does the TV show the space shuttle streaking across the sky over and over again? What happened? Where is my Mom or Dad? Yours is a small voice in a crashing storm of questions. And no answers will bring you comfort.
Seventeen years ago, before some of you were even born, I watched my father and his crew die in a horrible accident. Our loved ones were astronauts on board the space shuttle Challenger, which blew up a few minutes after take off. It all happened on live television. It should have been a moment of private grief, but instead it turned into a very public torture. We couldn't turn on the television for weeks afterward, because we were afraid we would see the gruesome spectacle of the Challenger coming apart a mile up in the sky.
My father died a hundred times a day on televisions all across the country. And since it happened so publicly, everyone in the country felt like it happened to them, too. And it did. The Challenger explosion was a national tragedy. Everyone saw it, everyone hurt, everyone grieved, everyone wanted to help. But that did not make it any easier for me. They wanted to say good-bye to American heroes. I just wanted to say good-bye to my Daddy.
You've discovered by now that you won't be able to escape the barrage of news and the countless angles of investigation, speculation and exasperation. The news coverage will ebb and flow, but will blindside you in the weeks, months and years to follow when you least expect it. You will be watching television and then, suddenly, there will be that image of the shuttle - YOUR shuttle - making its tragic path across the sky. For other people watching, this will all be something called "history." To you, it's your life.
Just know that the public's perception of this catastrophe isn't the same as yours. They can't know how painful it is to watch your Mom or Dad die several times each day. They can't know the horror you feel when they talk about finding your loved one's remains. If they knew how much pain it caused, they would stop.
You may have strange dreams or nightmares about your Mom or Dad being alive somehow, stranded or lost in some remote location after parachuting out of the shuttle before it flew to pieces. They may call to you in your dream to come find them. You will wake up with such hope and determination, only to have the clouds of reality gather and rain fresh tears of exasperation and sadness on your face. These dreams are your subconscious self trying to make sense out of what your conscious self already knows.
You may feel sick when you think about his or her broken body. You will be afraid to ask what happened because the answers might be worse than what you imagined. You'll torture yourself wondering if they felt pain, if they suffered, if they knew what was happening. They didn't. In the same way your brain doesn't register pain immediately when you break your arm, your Mom or Dad didn't know pain in their last moments of life on this earth.
You will think about the last things you said to each other. You might worry that you didn't say enough or say the right things. Rest easy. Their last thoughts were of you - the all of who you are - not the Feb. 1, 2003, you. And they were happy thoughts, all in a jumble of emotions so deep they are everlasting.
Everyone you know will cry fresh tears when they see you. People will try to feed you even though you know it all tastes like cardboard. They want to know what you think - what you feel - what you need. But you really don't know. You may not know for a very long time. And it will be an even longer amount of time before you can imagine your life without your Mom or Dad.
Some people, working through their own grief, will want to talk to you about the catastrophe, the aftermath, the debris recovery, or the actions that will be taken by NASA. Others will whisper as you walk by, "Her dad was killed in the space shuttle disaster." This new identity might be difficult for you. Sometimes you will want to say to the whisperers, "Yes! That was my Dad. We are so proud of him. I miss him like crazy!" But sometimes you will want to fade into the background, wanting to anonymously grieve in your own way, in your own time, without an audience.
When those who loved your Mom or Dad talk with you, cry with you, or even scream with frustration and unfairness of it, you don't have to make sense of it all. Grief is a weird and winding path with no real destination and lots of switchbacks. Look on grief as a journey - full of rest stops, enlightening sites and potholes of differing depths of rage, sadness and despair. Just realize that you won't be staying forever at one stop. You will eventually move on to the next. And the path will become smoother, but it may never come to an end.
Ask the people who love you and who knew and loved your Mom or Dad to help you remember the way they lived - not the way they died. You need stories about your Mom or Dad from their friends, co-workers, teachers and your extended family. These stories will keep your Mom or Dad alive and real in your heart and mind for the rest of your life. Listen carefully to the stories. Tell them. Write them. Record them. Post them online. The stories will help you remember. The stories will help you make decisions about your life - help you become the person you were meant to be.
Please know that we are with you - holding you in our hearts, in our minds and in our prayers.
Love, Kathie and the children of the Challenger crew