A blog about my late husband, George Maddox, who died after being injured in a plane crash. About grief, marriage, love and unexpected loss.

We’re getting very close to 18 months since George passed away. These 18 months have changed all of us.

None of us takes a long life for granted any more.

As a little girl I dreamed of one marriage that would last forever. I have trouble believing I’ve now experienced a divorce and become a widow. Not what I planned. Not what I wanted.

Single motherhood is difficult, too. When I married George I knew we’d be together until one of us died. We were, it all just happened a lot quicker that I expected.

I’ve learned that expectations are just fantasies we call plans.

We’re still waiting to see what the NTSB has to say about George’s accident. The factual report is being amended right now and is no longer available on the internet. As I understand what is happening, Quest Diagnostics disagrees with some of the findings and has asked to add a statement. Once their information is approved, the report will go back on the internet.

The next step is the final decision on the cause of the accident.

Of course, I know what caused it, because I spoke to Sonil, the co-pilot, while he was recovering in the hospital. He confused the throttle with the feathering control and feathered the props on the plane when George told him to slow down. This started a chain of events that ended in them hitting a sign and tree and blowing up. How this will be interpreted by the NTSB now that Sonil has recanted his NTSB testimony, I don’t know. I do know that he told several people his original story. There a lots of witnesses to his statement.

Once a final cause is determined, I believe the report moves to the FAA. The FAA, unlike the NTSB, is an enforcement agency. We’ll see then if the FAA has anything to say about the many safety issues cited in the accident report.

Another thing I’ve learned is that no one can know what it is like to live through something like this until it happens to them. The experience of George’s accident, his hospitalization, his death and now the investigation into his death has been stamped into my soul. I sort of thought I knew how the world worked before this happened.

How naive!

In the United States we hope that if we get sick, someone will have already figured out a way to save us. If we are wronged, there are agencies and groups set up to help us and they will do their jobs without prodding or questions. We hope if we are honest and direct in our dealings with others they will be that way with us.

Not so.

Our ultimate responsibility as adults is to take care of ourselves and our families. To build a world view and then work daily to live a life that reflects who we are. When horrible things happen, and they do, we have to respond thoughtfully. Reflect on what we believe and how to react. Then, we have to stand up.

Loss. Disappointment. Anger. Strength. Hope.

Resolution. It’s been a long time coming. But I see it in the distance, and I’ve learned that’s enough.

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I’ve learned a lot about grief and acceptance of accidental death in these 16 months since George died.

It has taken many months for my brain to actually accept what happened to George.

Yes, of course, I know exactly what happened. I know too much about what happened. But I’ve learned that your mind is very kind to you. It separates out what you know from what you feel. The really bad stuff goes in a box, and it doesn’t come out until you are ready to handle it.

At least this is what is going on with me.

When George was in the hospital it was all just too much to accept. He was in a coma. When I spoke to him his heart raced, which I found horribly upsetting. I began to feel I was torturing him. I felt, rather quickly, that it was best if I talked to him very little.

And I was afraid.

I was deathly afraid I was going to give him an infection. Again and again, doctors warned that the risk of infection was extremely high. I started to feel that if he was going to die from an infection, I wanted to be certain I wasn’t the one to give it to him. I limited my visits and stayed primarily behind the observation window.

I put some distance between us.

I didn’t want to kill him.

In the end he did in fact die of an infection. Don’t worry, I know his death had nothing to do with me, but my worst fears did come true. And its taken all these months for me to really allow this information in all its throbbing awfulness into my consciousness.

Doctors gave me a lot of information during those 14 days. It still swirls around in my head. Lots of scary facts. Things you really don’t want to know. Things I wish I never learned about.

So these past few days, all of a sudden, I’m thinking a lot about George getting burned. It came into my mind and now I am having to face the brutality of it all once again. I imagine this is pretty normal in this sort of situation.

But normal does not equal easy.

I imagine what I’m going through is a lot like post traumatic stress syndrome. Something terrible happens and it haunts you later. And it is all the cliched things that go through my head. Why us? Why him?

These questions have no answers.

I accept that.

I accept that I am going to be in the process of dealing with this for a very long time. I am sure there are more grieving surprises in store for me. The box is open, and its time to look inside.

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Aviation Week, a professional aviation journal that is distributed in airports all over the United States, has published a story on George’s accident.

Story written by Dick Aarons, Aviation Week

From the story:

As of this writing the NTSB had not issued a probable cause for the accident. However, the factual information developed by the Safety Board’s investigators and consultants uncovered several safety management issues that deserve the attention of Part 91 operators, line pilots and the FAA. While this accident focuses on Quest, we regularly receive reports from employees of other Part 91 operations telling us of apparent disconnects between the intention and implementation of safety management programs. This is the story of one.

And:

Lessons Learned

This is a sad case, but certainly not unique — simply another in which all the tolerances lined up unidirectionally. A pilot died and another suffered life-altering injuries. It’s up to the NTSB to come up with the probable cause, but certainly the SMS concept failed as implemented in this operation. Safety is much more than regulatory compliance — it’s an attitude that must extend from the chairman to the guy who sweeps the hangar floor. Safety Management Systems will be successful only if the people involved truly believe in and trust the system and each other. In this case it seems a corporate safety culture became corrupt, that is, if it ever existed at all.

Additionally, Quest had another plane incident a few days ago, where a plane in Reading, PA had icing problems and slid down the runway, causing the airport to be closed for 2 hours. Both engines were destroyed, but the pilot was unhurt.

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Normalizing our lives after George’s death has been extremely difficult. Life is not normal, but we try to make it so. We spend most of our time trying not to think about our sadness. So that means we really spend a lot of our time being sad.

Lily stands by George's dog Buster's grave. He passed away a week ago. Another sad event for my girl.

I am humbled and amazed by Lily’s efforts to cope. Young children are resilient and brave. Lily keeps George in the forefront of her thoughts always, and tries very hard to comfort me if she senses I am feeling sad. She sometimes wakes up in the morning crying. When this happens I never know exactly how to handle it.

I’m sad too.

I feel like I am trying to feel around in a dark room. What response is best? Which response will be the one she remembers? I have no way of knowing and I feel impotent as I cast about, trying to help her feel better. She soldiers on, and her efforts to deal with all the changes in her life make me feel so proud of her, but they break my heart. No one should have to cope with the finality of death at this young an age.

As for me, I think a lot about what George would want for our girl. I wonder what he would think about all that has happened since the accident.  He always trusted my judgement with Lily when he was alive, but I always felt my judgement was tempered by his opinions. So though I know he trusted me, I constantly wish for his input.

In these past sixteen months I’ve learned a lot. I’ve learned that every child needs two parents to love them.

I’ve learned that though anger is a natural reaction to an event like this; that it usually gets you nowhere, and tires you out more than its worth. I am trying to accept. Trying to find peace.

Our house is nearing completion and our family will soon be together in Asheville. I’m happy about that. I need the support, and Lily misses my parents and sister. They should be here in March. I will be relieved to get the stress of moving and settling out of the way.

I want to feel like I know what will happen next.

Of course, I’ve learned that no matter how you plan, and dream, and work, and try, you cannot know what the future holds.

I think its best that way.

Not knowing allows for hope. And I have a lot of hope for us all.

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