Speaking of Astronauts

As I drove at a little after seven this morning I thought... 'if my husband were alive. What would he be doing right now?' There was a mental quietness of wondering for a moment as I drove.

My thoughts then floated to seeing a man walking two dogs, As his not yet school-aged children walked ahead of him. I see this routine of theirs nearly every school morning at this time. This simple set of acts of theirs is amazing to me.

The rest of my day is filled with studies, writing, taking classes, a run, and some cleaning. If I'm lucky, I get to settle in and watch part of a news program by seven or so.

Tonight I caught the last fifteen minutes of a news program near eight. Some of the final few minutes focused on a space flight for six civilians. That brings me back to this morning. My husband, if he were alive he would be reading up on this. He would want to do this. He always wanted to be an astronaut. However, one of perhaps the many things that stood in his way in his early life was his eyesight. Depth perception, he adjusted well to it in life in general. Yet, to fly even a jet in the Air Force back then you had to have better eyesight than he'd had. He knew this.

He didn't fool himself about it. He twice went to a recruiting office. And it was his eyesight as the main issue. Not even his age, the second time at age twenty-nine.

If we were millionaires, he would be on board with going into space soon. Academically, he had what it took. Especially, as he got older and went back to college fulltime in his late thirties for four years. And granted as well, I think he would pass all the physicals. For he always stayed in fairly good shape. Now, books on aeronautics, missiles, space and such, still line a few of our bookshelves. He read them all.---Jody-Lynn Reicher

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