You have no idea how much I miss you…
I saw this plane go down that day.
I was on the last ferry to Hoboken (they all left to go into rescue mode after dropping off the passengers.)
I saw the news later that day and the next morning and saw the ferry operators who had just dropped us in Hoboken be the first to arrive at the plane.
But I was in the middle of my own personal crisis. I had spent the week talking to hospice and bracing for my own impact.
When hospice appeared, it meant something. Something bad.
Therefore, I felt strangely disconnected to the events taking place on the Hudson.
A plane just crashed into the Hudson. A fellow ferry passenger was screaming that he worked for the airlines and no way anyone survived a plunge into the Hudson. He said everyone on the plane must be dead.
I was unclear about what really happened. I heard it, but it was an odd sound. Definitely hadn’t exploded. While it was still in the air it looked as if it would land right on us, but the ferry crew nonchalantly docked the boat, let us off, before they went off on a rescue mission as if this was the time of day they go rescue people from a jet languishing on the icy Hudson River.
I couldn’t see the plane from where I was. I stood on the dock for a while but it was cold so I walked inside to the train station.
Once on the train, I was hoping it would leave the station without the events on the river affecting my departure.
Was there really a crash?
It didn’t look as if the plane was crashing, just coming down.
Still, the airlines dude was yelling that he knew all about water landings and there was most likely no chance of surviving one. He was a crazy person describing different times a plane landed on water and broke into a million pieces, as the man on the video below talks about. I had no idea if he was right or not, but he was making the rest of us a bit crazy too.
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No one will ever miss me the way I miss him.
I try to not write about celebrities. I try to stay on this side of things. I’ve written (positively) about Jennifer Aniston and some things about Britney Spears’ meltdown a few years ago, but I try to stay out of that fray although I was asked about and quoted extensively about Ray J and Kim K (that article probably got more play than either Ray J or Kim and that’s going some) as well as Taylor Swift using a “breakup coach” (again widely quoted but originally sourced via the New York Post) but those journalists came to me for expert commentary, I did not go to them.
If you see ANY articles about Lea Michele and how she is “still grieving” and can’t get out of bed “although some time has passed” DON’T READ IT AND CLICK ON IT. Actually don’t read ANY articles about her unless they seem to understand and don’t say stupid things like “she is STILL a mess.” They are sensationalist garbage that have no compassion or empathy for her and most have NO CLUE about the grief process.
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The other day Theresa asked me what her dad’s favorite song was for a new tattoo she is designing. Of course, being who he was, “Born to be Wild” by Steppenwolf was the immediate choice, but I knew, undoubtedly, that if there was a second one it would be a song, its exact polar opposite, Con te Partiro. Without a doubt it was his second favorite song of all time.
When I went to Sicily on an PhotoJournalism trip in 1998, I brought back a CD by Andrea Bocelli, who was not well known in the US, but on the tour bus the director played it every day. I, along with my much younger classmates, fell in love with it, and on the last day she gave us each a gift bag that included his CD.
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5/26: Happy birthday baby, I miss you so much.
5/27: Happy Memorial Day. Thank you for serving and for being there for our country. I miss our weekends when we did Rolling Thunder. They were so much fun riding there and back…many funny stories and foibles to be had when you take the backroads on Harleys even from Boston to DC. We laughed so much about the memories only we shared. They were the craziest of times…and we did the craziest of things on those trips…so much fun in just a few days. I can only imagine the fun we would have had if we had been able to make the cross country trip we planned.
But Rolling Thunder itself was very solemn and I will never forget your face as other Vietnam Vets said, “Welcome Home, brother.” They were only a few of the times I saw tears in your eyes. It’s an experience I’ll never forget. You all deserved welcomes you did not get and our country has learned from the injustice done to you all. So I thank you for sharing Rolling Thunder with me and allowing me to see one of the few areas where you were truly vulnerable.
The 2013 Get M.A.D. at Brain Cancer NBTS NYC Fund Raiser
Other than Rolling Thunder and the night our dog died, one of the only other times I saw Michael’s eyes fill with tears, was not when HE was told he had cancer, but when he saw the children in the cancer treatment center. While I was busy navel gazing and trying to not be hysterical over the thought of losing him (I was screaming inside while paying attention to him on the outside), he drew my attention to the plight of children with cancer which is why I continue to fight the fight he would never win.
I will never forget his sad face as he looked at the kids and whispered to me, “I’ve lived my life, they should be out playing.” Although I wanted to scream at him that he was only 56, and he was leaving me, and what the hell????, I just smiled at him and nodded in agreement.
His favorite thing in the world was bass fishing. He was severely ADHD and told me that fishing had a calming effect on him and that his thoughts were not racing a mile a minute when he was fishing.
He was a tournament fisherman at one point and a fishing instructor for people new to tournament fishing. He only fished catch and release, which made no sense to me. I used to call it “looking at fish.” I said, “So you pull this thing out of the water and look at it and throw it back in.” He said, No, you also have to kiss the fish. I said, “WHAT? KISS the fish?” He said yes, it was good luck and a ‘kiss goodbye’ as well as offering a mark of respect to the fish and a thank you for the sport (I think that was some Italian thing with him).
Michael said he also kissed the fish to apologize for catching it with a hook and speed its healing (like a Mommy kisses a boo boo). I said that was THE stupidest thing I ever heard especially since most Moms do not hook their children for sport (though sometimes it seems like a good idea.) I said that maybe instead of apologizing for catching the fish, you just don’t catch it. Of course, to him that was the most ridiculous thing HE ever heard. But our kids, who regularly fished with him, said he did, indeed, kiss the fish.
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Sunday is Michael’s birthday and it’s Memorial Day weekend. We did Rolling Thunder for years on Memorial Day weekend and, as a Vietnam Vet, it was very healing for him to spend it with his biker/vet brothers. I miss those days riding our Harleys from Boston to DC and chit chatting/joking on the headsets in our helmets. Everything was so much fun…I miss those wknds with him SO much. May is also Brain Tumor Awareness Month and our fund raiser walk is in NYC on Father’s Day. Michael survived Vietnam but could not survive brain cancer…it’s such a killer and its research is so underfunded and so much is needed toward research and treatment. We in the brain cancer support community also lost a few of our children warriors this week and as Michael always said about kids in cancer treatment, “They should be out playing, not in here.” Brain cancer is a leading form of childhood death and incredibly difficult to treat. I explain it on our page (why so difficult).
If you can donate to our team to help eradicate this killer disease, we would appreciate it.
If you want to donate to me directly and leave me a message that you are from the blog, scroll all the way to the bottom of the page and click on my name to donate directly to me and it goes to both me and the team. THANK YOU.
If you want to know why this is such a killer disease, scroll down on my page where I attempt to explain what we are up against.
Michael A. DiCarlo Brain Tumor Foundation NBTS 2013 Team Page
Rope Burns ~ A Journey 