To the three servicemen who died in a midair collision on Wednesday in Washington DC. I’m sorry. 

I’m sorry for everything. Not just the tragedy itself. I’m sorry for all the crap that came after. All the fussing and fighting. The postulating. For all the disrespect to your memory. 

I’m sorry for the suits on TV, pointing fingers and placing blame. I’m sorry for the uneducated keyboard warriors, sitting behind laptops, violating your memory by offering excremental opinions on what you “should have done,” or “why this happened.” 

In fact, I’m sorry for the millions of people online who participated in disgusting trajectory. Who leave comments on social-media posts about this catastrophe, about your alleged roles in it, and who offer up their own political rants.

As if politics has anything to do with the precious life you lived. 

These people are talking out of their rearmost orifices. 

And so, to the Army pilot who remains unnamed. To the other pilot, Chief Warrant Officer 2, Andrew Eaves, from Brooksville, Mississippi. And to crew chief and

Georgia native, Ryan O’Hara. We all owe you an apology. 

Because we have all accidentally partaken in watching your memory get smeared by a bunch of buttheads with microphones and Twitter/X accounts.  

Following the disaster, Officer Eaves’s wife wrote: 

“We ask that you pray for our family and friends and for all the other families that are suffering today. We ask for peace while we grieve.”

Peace while she grieves. That’s what she wanted. That’s what we should have given her. But we Americans didn’t.

We Americans are taking to social media like droves of technological drunks, gorging ourselves on “insights” and “expert opinions.” And the noise we are creating fosters anything but peace. 

So, to Sam Lilley, a pilot on American Airlines flight 5432. To the 64 souls aboard the civilian airliner. To the rescue workers, first responders, and emergency crews who…

Sixty passengers. Four crewmembers. Sixty-four people.

That’s all I heard the reporter say.  

I turned on the TV to see disaster. A plane went down in DC. The reporters were saying lots of words.

Mostly, filler words. Meaningless information. Keep the conversational ball moving. Keep talking even if it doesn’t make sense. No dead air. 

But all I heard was: “There were sixty-four people aboard the aircraft.”  

Sixty-four. 

Sixty-four people. That’s 64 families. That’s 64 grieving moms and dads. Sixty-four bereaved brothers, sisters, wives, husbands, boyfriends, girlfriends, sons, daughters, friends, coworkers, bosses. Sixty-four pets maybe, still waiting at the windowsill. 

The plane left Dwight D. Eisenhower National Airport in Wichita. Bound for Washington DC. A quick flight. Two hours and 45 minutes, max. 

The flight was almost over. Sixty passengers would have been gathering up their crap. Shoving books into backpacks. Using the john one last time. Killing the last of their complimentary coffees. 

Crewmembers might have been collecting final remnants of garbage, flashing professional smiles to passengers. In the cockpit, they would

have been relaxed since the airport was just ahead. 

BOOM. 

The plane collided with a US Army Blackhawk helicopter. Midair. Above the midnight water of the Potomac River. And it was all over. 

The resulting scene was scary. Like a bad dream. Emergency lights as far as the eye could see. Ambulances, fire trucks, police cruisers, rescue watercraft galore. Hundreds of first responders, diving into icy water to find survivors. The Ptomac looked like a boat parade. 

A guy driving home saw the whole thing happen. 

“Initially, I saw the plane and it looked fine. Normal. It was right about to head over land, maybe 120 feet above the water…” 

He saw the plane bank right. Almost 90 degrees. 

“I could see the underside of it. It was lit up a very bright yellow, and there was a stream of sparks underneath it” and then…

She’s 19. Beautiful. Violent red hair. And smart. Morgan is one of those rare humans who honestly thinks math was not invented by Satan. 

The girl climbs into my truck, buckles herself in.

“Hey,” she says. Fresh-faced and happy. Slightly out of breath. The flushed cheeks of youth. 

I like that she feels so at home in my truck. 

She’s got big plans in life. Pre-med student. Wants to be a doctor. Maybe. Or a nutritionist. Perhaps. Or someone whose job is to shop at Target all day with unlimited stacks of cash. Maybe she’ll be all those things. 

Who knows. Who cares. Doesn’t matter right now. Because she’s at that age where she isn’t expected to know exactly what she wants to be. It’s a big world out there and she’s allowed to change her mind as often as she wants. 

Technically, she shouldn’t be here right now. Here in my passenger seat. Namely, because last month they were planning her funeral. Literally. They were choosing ceremony music. Choosing guest speakers. Choosing photos. 

She was in a hospital

bed, too weak to open her eyes. Or speak. Malnourished. Unable to walk. Her gastroparesis complications are many. 

“I finally came to the place where I was done fighting. I was praying for God to let me die.” 

There is a small tear in her eye. And in mine. Nineteen-year-old girls aren’t supposed to pray to die.  

“It’s not that I wanted to die,” she explains. “It’s just, I’ve just been fighting for so long. I was praying to go to heaven.”

Doctors kept fighting. They tried new treatments. New medications. New everything. Now she’s on Total Parenteral Nutrition (TPN), which feeds her directly through her bloodstream, bypassing her digestive system altogether. It’s a form of life support. 

Thanks to TPN, suddenly, she could move again. Suddenly she wasn’t sleeping all day. Some of her muscle mass came back. Doctors…

Angels aren’t real. They can’t be. It just doesn’t make sense. How can a rational human with a working brain believe in invisible celestial creatures who all resemble Michael Landon? 

People will make fun of you if you believe in angels.

At least that’s what the young woman thought. There were no such things as angels. Case closed.  

The young woman was driving on a desolate backroad. Going home. A college student. Working on her second degree. A hard skeptic. Educated beyond her intelligence. 

The year was 1974. Paul Harvey was playing on her radio. She wasn’t a Harvey fan, but it was either him or the pop music of ‘74. Such as “Seasons in the Sun.” Or, God help us, “The Way We Were.” 

The young woman was thinking about her mom. Her mom was crazy. Super religious. A big believer in angels. Ceramic angel crap all over the house. Angel coffee-table books. Angel toilet paper holders.  

The young woman’s car hit a patch of ice on the highway. She lost control and collided

with a tree.

The crunching of metal. The twisting of steel. Her vehicle contorted around the trunk of an oak. Game over.  

She was there for a long time, pinned in the driver’s seat. Nothing but the silence of a rural highway to keep her company. 

That's when she heard someone saying her name. It was a man’s voice. Soft and kind. He opened her mangled door. He helped her out of the smoldering wreckage. 

She doesn’t remember anything about him except for one thing. He was wearing a Beatles T-shirt. John, Paul, George, and Ringo were staring back at her, dressed in full Sgt. Peppers regalia. Ringo always looked so sad. Poor Ringo. 

In a few moments, she was lying against the guardrail. The guy was stroking her hair as she fell in and out of consciousness. 

“You’re going to be okay,”…

All I wanted was a newspaper.

It was a small town. Somewhere in the Southeast. Big shopping complex, off the interstate. Best Buy, Red Lobster, Ulta, Olive Garden, Outback Steakhouse, Target, and all other franchises that transform American towns into carbon copies, from Oil Slick to Shining Oil Slick. 

I walked into the gas station to buy coffee and a newspaper. But something was wrong.

“Sorry, sir,” said the kid, playing on a phone. “Ain’t got no newspapers here.”

“Do you know where I might find some?”

The kid looked up from his device and took a few moments to think about it. “Got some real estate magazines out there.” 

“I’m not looking for real estate.” 

Shrug. “Well, it's a really great place to live.” 
  
So I drove around. Maybe I could get one at the grocery store. I’m a big fan of physical newspapers. Even though they aren’t en vogue anymore, you can usually find one the supermarket.  

“Excuse me,” I asked the young man at the supermarket’s customer service desk. “Do you sell newspapers?”

The kid

was dressed like a surfer although it was 32 degrees Fahrenheit outside.

He looked at me with that “look.” You know the look. My grandfather might have said you gazed into this young man’s eyes and saw the back of his skull. But I’m choosing to call this look a “vacant stare.” 

“Brah,” the kid said. “I don’t think we sell newspapers.” 

“You don’t think?”

“Nope.” 

“Is there any way we could find someone who does think?”

He itched his hair, then sniffed his fingers. “Let me ask a manager.” 

The manager was a young woman. Very friendly. Very organized. She smiled and informed me:  

“We don’t sell newspapers. We have a free magazine rack by the entrance. It’s mostly just real estate magazines.” 

“I’m not looking to relocate here.”

“There are some very good articles…

You’re going through something right now. Something bad. Something truly, inexplicably, wholly, and everlastingly crappy. 

I don’t know what it is. But it’s ugly. And it’s getting the best of you.

Someone you love betrayed you. Someone you trusted let you down. Your body is sick. Maybe a loved one is dying. Maybe you got some bad news.  

It doesn’t matter what your experience. What matters is, I’m thinking about you. And as I am writing these feeble words, holding you in my heart, although I can’t see your face, I can imagine you. 

Somehow, I almost feel a teensy bit of what you’re feeling. The pain. The heavy load. The agony in your breast. 

Namely, because my own life has undergone episodes of grief. And whenever one endures grief—true grief—it rewires one’s brain. 

Suffering sort of initiates you into a secret club you never knew existed. A club of hurting people. And you start noticing things you never noticed before. 

You walk through Walmart and notice the bald woman with the oxygen canister. You recognize the single

dad, pushing his buggy quietly through the aisles, looking like he’s about to have a nervous breakdown. 

You see the weathered woman standing in the median, holding a cardboard sign reading: “Anything Helpz.” And you actually SEE her.

You might not have seen these people before. But now you do. You’re feeling what they feel. Because you are them. They are you. And this new togetherness you feel with strangers, this is not a bad thing.  

So, I have no advice. No wisdom. No clichéd unoriginal, motivational meme to get you through your hard time.

I’m not a smart guy. And even if I were , you can’t trust smart people. Even smart people can be about as clueless as a one-legged cat in a litterbox. 

Even so, I know one thing. And this is the only thing I know…

I’ve never seen London. I’ve never seen France. Consequently, I’ve never seen anyone’s underpants.

But in a few months my wife Jamie and I will fly into France—wearing underpants—to do something that is completely nuts because my wife is bat-excrement insane.

In a couple months, we will be deposited in a French airport with nothing but backpacks and walking shoes. We will traverse 500 miles on foot, hiking the breadth of Spain, from Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port to Santiago de Compostela. These are places I’ve never heard of. Places I can’t even pronounce.

So I’ve been doing some light reading on what we’re about to embark upon.

This 500-mile route was established in the 9th century and is one of the oldest religious pilgrimages in history. In fact, the route is CALLED the “Pilgrimage,” or “El Camino,” or “Middle-Aged People Doing Something Stupid.”

But as I understand it, the Camino is basically just a really, REALLY long trail hiked by people who are trying to find something.

“A lot of are trying to find themselves,” says one expert I interviewed. “But after the first few days, most hikers are just trying to find clean toilets and decent insoles.”

Jamie and I have been training for the past several months. We have been going on walks wherein we hike a few miles, and each time we return we give each other looks of mock terror because we know we will be walking five times this distance every day for A MONTH AND A HALF.

This will be the biggest, most notable thing either of us has ever tackled with the exception of having a new septic tank installed. And I am sitting here thinking about the Camino this morning.

I am the same age my father was when he died. Which makes this a pivotal year for me. I never expected to live this long. Frankly,…

I was on the way to the shed. Walking through the yard. I saw something in the grass. It was fluttering in the weeds. I could see its wings. 

I squatted for a closer look. It was a bird. Lying on its back. The creature was kicking its legs. The mouth was open. A shrill squeal was coming out of its open beak. It looked scared. 

So I turned the bird onto its side. I thought maybe it was just stuck on its back. But the bird was still crying. You could tell something was wrong with its neck because the bird couldn’t seem to move its head. 

When I picked up the creature, I didn’t mean to but I started crying. Because I could see life draining out of its small body. I could hear its faint cries getting weaker.  

“Sssshhh,” I said, wiping my own tears. 

And I couldn’t think of anything to do but stroke its little breast and touch its tiny head. I realize I was probably terrifying the creature, but I’d like to think

it could sense the love I was feeling. 

“I’m sorry this happened,” I said, with streams rolling down my face. “I’m so sorry this happened to you.” 

The bird quit kicking its legs and its eyes were blinking progressively slower, with long pauses between each reopening. 

“It’s okay,” I said. “Just rest.” 

I saw one of my neighbors in their yard. 

“What are you doing?” they called out. 

“This bird is dying,” I said.  

My neighbor smiled and edged away from me as though I were Anthony Perkins. But I was too busy at the moment to care. I knelt in the grass and watched the bird’s life expire. 

“Ssshhh,” I said. 

The bird’s squealing finally ended. Its cries were silenced, its legs quit kicking, its black eyes closed. I used a spade to dig a small hole, and placed the…

I receive a lot of messages. I cannot answer all these questions, so I have compiled the most common ones to answer them here. 

Q: Do you even care about your own country? Are you even watching the news right now? Sweet stories about kids with cancer are heartwarming and get lots of likes and engagement and build your brand, but are you aware that you are losing your national and personal freedoms AS WE SPEAK? 

A: As we speak, 8 kids just died of cancer. 

Q: Why don’t you ever comment on our politicians? You have such a platform to spread truth, and yet I don’t know where you stand, and therefore I can’t figure out whether I’m supposed to like you or not. How can I figure it out if I don’t know which politicians you support? 

A: My opinion is that America has the best politicians money can buy.

Q: I paid $24 dollars for eggs at the grocery store yesterday, I am sick and tired of these prices!!!!!! When will we do something

about the expensive cost of living!!!!!

A: Tell me about it, I had to move into my friend’s bouncy castle. The rent is expensive, but it’s mostly inflation. 

Q: How can you just sit there and watch the country go to [deleted] I read your stuff and wonder what [deleted] planet were you born on?

A: Different one than yours. 

Q: Do you seriously believe in angels you [deleted] moron? I’ll bet you pee sitting down, too. 

A: Only when my angel is watching. 

Q: Do you know that this is the worst time in world history? We are standing on the precipice of the most nightmarish timeline of current events this globe has ever seen. These are the darkest times we have ever known.

A: Don’t feel bad, friend. I failed history, too. 

Q: My Jesus is the only way to heaven,…

The Helen Keller Art show is in full swing. The center is adorned in art. Tactile pieces. Colorful artwork. Sculptures.

The artists are mostly students from the Alabama Institute for the Deaf and Blind. One of the nation’s oldest institutions.

“THAT ONE’S MINE!” shouts a young, blind artist. She is excitedly tapping a painting. “IT’S A FLOWER!”

“That’s a beautiful piece,” I reply. “Why did you choose a flower?”

“Because God loves flowers.”

And I am starting to have flashbacks.

Namely, because a few years ago, I attended the Helen Keller show. Before the show I met a little girl in the art gallery. She was using a pink wheelchair. A seatbelt around her tiny waist. Her eyes did not look at me, they looked through me.

“Hi,” said the cheerful girl. “My name’s Henrietta, what’s yours?”

So I told her.

We shook hands. And we talked. Henrietta told me about her artwork. She told me about her mitochondrial disease. And her progressive blindness.

She said

she’d spent most of her life living in hospitals. Most of her birthdays. Most holidays. Her life had been lived out in hospitals.

“That’s why I’m going to start my own charity someday,” she said.

“What will your charity be about?” I said.

“I’m going to get toys donated from kids, and then I’m going to give all those toys to children trapped in hospitals, all over America. That way they have something to play with, and so they know someone cares about them. Because in a hospital, you sometimes feel like you’re all alone. But you’re not.”

After our brief conversation, I watched Henrietta wheel up to the stage to receive an award for her artwork.

When the ceremony was over, we were in the lobby, talking again. And I marveled at this child who had come so close…