Series: Snapshots of the Past
Story: Father of Daughters
Chapter 25
Disclaimer: See Chapter 1
Previously: After girl-talk with their mom, the girls spent the night with Abbey in her room; Mrs. Wilburforce picked up Zoey from school after she sprained her ankle at recess; Abbey was called into emergency surgery; the other three Bartlets prepared for the launch of the space shuttle Challenger - Liz in the cafeteria at lunch, Jed on Capitol Hill, and Ellie with her sixth-grade class
Summary: Tragedy
Author's Note: Ronald Reagan's national address on the Challenger disaster is part of the public record at his presidential library, so excerpts from it are included in this chapter (along with one line that Wingnuts might recognize from the show). Credit goes to former President Reagan and his speechwriting staff, including The West Wing consultant Peggy Noonan. The Mission Control voiceover is from NASA's audio on Jan. 28, 1986.
AN 2: Debs, I couldn't reach you by PM so there's a reply to your question in the Review section -- Amber
- - -
"I told you he gives me lollipops!" Zoey gleefully licked her cherry lollipop as Mrs. Wilburforce carried her from the doctor's office to the car.
"What does your mom say about that?"
"She says it's okay if it's from the doctor, but she gets mad when Daddy gives me one."
Mrs. Wilburforce smiled. It was just like Jed to sneak lollipops to the girls behind Abbey's back. "So that's how she gets you to go to the doctor without a fight? Your sisters too?"
"Only Ellie. Not Lizzie. Mommy has to fight with her whenever she has to take her." In the front passenger's seat, Zoey pulled her seatbelt over her chest. "Can we make a snowman when we get home?"
"If it ever stops snowing."
Mrs. Wilburforce looked up at the gray skies that were responsible for that morning's fierce snowstorm. She then slid into the driver's seat, turned on the car, and reached for the radio dial. Because Zoey had been getting X-rays on her ankle, neither of them had seen or heard anything about the shuttle launch.
"...the explosion happened 22 minutes ago at 11:39 a.m. off the coast of Florida. No word from NASA officials on the cause of the malfunction..."
With a sharp gasp, she stabbed the dial shut, turning it off before Zoey could hear another word.
"Why'd you do that?" the six-year-old asked. Her voice so innocent, she was unprepared for what she was about to find out.
"Hang on tight, okay?"
Mrs. Wilburforce sped out of the parking lot, headed to Manchester Elementary to get to Ellie.
- - -
At the hospital, Abbey had just finished an emergency surgery on her patient, Mr. Lyle, and was on her way to the lockerroom to change into a fresh pair of scrubs. She was moving so fast, she didn't even notice the doctors and nurses who had crammed into an empty room to watch the shuttle coverage. As she whizzed past the nurse's station, Nurse Olivia stopped her.
"Dr. Bartlet, you have a lot of messages here. Your family couldn't reach you."
"What's going on?"
Olivia flipped through the messages. "The school nurse called a little while ago to say that Zoey sprained her ankle, then your husband called to say Mrs. Wilburforce would be picking her up. And about twenty minutes ago, your daughter Ellie called, your husband called again, your daughter Liz called, and your husband called one last time to say that he gave permission for Liz to leave school early and pick up Ellie on the way home."
"Why?"
"The space shuttle. They were watching it."
"And?" Abbey regretted missing the launch, but she had been in an operating room and had no idea what was awaiting her beyond the walls of the hospital.
"You haven't heard?"
"I've been in surgery for the past hour. What on earth has happened?"
"It exploded after lift-off," Olivia told her and then added, "The astronauts were killed."
- - -
A half hour earlier
January 28, 1986. It began as such an exciting day. Seven astronauts waved to the cameras on the way to the launch pad. They had been praised and celebrated for months, nowhere more so than in the state of New Hampshire, the home to the woman who was supposed to be the first U.S. civilian in space - Christa McAuliffe, a teacher from Concord. A teacher. A regular human being that kids could relate to. Their mission held promise for space exploration and for education. The idea of tuning in to watch the science lessons and experiments from on-board the Challenger as it orbited Earth, inspired tens of thousands of schoolchildren who were counting down the days until the launch. On that fateful morning, NASA set up a closed-circuit feed in classrooms around the country, giving students an eye-witness glimpse into the nation's space program.
In New Hampshire, the fanfare was bigger than anywhere else. The students from Concord High School, where Christa McAuliffe taught, had been taken to an auditorium to watch the lift-off together on a giant television screen. Wearing party hats and throwing confetti, they clapped and blew into their noisemakers before an audience of cameras and national press as the shuttle left the launch pad. But seconds later, it was the eerie sound of silence that permeated the room as an ominous puff of smoke filled the screen.
Only 15 miles away in Manchester, Ellie Bartlet, who had been persuaded to share her memories of space camp with her classmates, was watching the launch too, along with the rest of her sixth-grade class. Their cheers drowned out the voiceover from NASA's Mission Control, but a little over a minute into the flight, Ellie sensed something wasn't right. She saw the explosion. She flinched. And then, the disintegration. She looked at her teacher in horror and as other students shushed their peers, they all learned something had gone terribly wrong.
The NASA voice said flatly, without emotion, "Flight controllers looking very carefully at the situation. Obviously, a major malfunction." And then moments later from Mission Control, "We have a report from the flight dynamics officer that the vehicle has exploded."
Mrs. Gordon shut off the television as quickly as she could and her class began to bombard her with questions. Moans and grumbles came from their mouths and several distraught students were taken to the front office so they could call their parents. Among them, the shy blonde in the first row, third seat from the back, the one who had charmed her classmates with stories of space camp just minutes earlier and who knew, before it became clear to the rest of her class, that the shuttle was in trouble.
A few blocks away at Manchester High School, Liz had seen the explosion on a television set in the cafeteria. The words of Mission Control silenced the room and she bolted from her seat and ran to the office to call her mother. When she learned that Abbey was in surgery, she called Jed, then hurriedly left school to pick up Ellie.
On Capitol Hill, Jed was numb from the shock. He had held it together for his girls, comforting a shaken Ellie over the phone and promising that he'd be home soon. When he talked to Liz, he used the same approach and asked her to take care of Ellie until he could make it back, knowing the disaster would hit his middle daughter the hardest. After saying his goodbyes to Liz, he curled the receiver in his hand, took a deep breath, and swallowed past the giant lump that had formed in his throat.
"Maggie?" he called as he entered the lobby of his congressional suite. "I need the next flight back to New Hampshire."
"You can't go home now," Chief of Staff, Michael, told his boss.
"Did you not just see what happened? Seven people DIED right before our eyes! I'm going home. My family needs me."
"Sir, you can't go. There's a rescue mission underway. NASA sent out a search team."
"Is there a chance...?" He let the thought trail off, hoping there was a chance, but knowing there most likely wasn't.
"I don't know. But either way, you can't leave. You've been summoned to the White House and so has the rest of the New Hampshire delegation."
"My little girl watched this happen, live." It pained Jed to think of Ellie's childlike enthusiasm crushed to pieces by such a traumatic incident.
"So did thousands of other little girls, and little boys too. We messed up. The feed should have been on tape-delay. NASA, the White House, the government, we screwed up and any minute now, we're going to be inundated with phone calls from people wanting answers. The President needs your input."
"Look me in the eye and tell me this isn't politics."
"It's not. It's not about poll numbers; it's about the fact that you're a leader and even more importantly today, you're a leader from New Hampshire. Christa McAuliffe was the star of this mission, a civilian from your own state, a teacher in your own backyard. There are going to be meetings all day today about why this happened and what to do now. Your constituents need you here, on their behalf. You have to meet with the President."
Michael was right, Jed had to admit. The people of New Hampshire sent him to Washington to represent them and today of all days, he had to represent them to the hilt. They needed him as their ambassador, standing beside the president and getting a first-hand account of what went wrong, what caused the devastating tragedy that took the lives of these men and women and ripped out the hearts of all the kids who had witnessed it.
He had been serving in congress for a year and this was the first time he had to choose between what was best for his district and what was best for his family. It would have been an easy question, he once thought. But confronting it now, he realized it was anything but easy. He was torn between his duty and his heart. His heart belonged to Abbey and his girls, the people he wanted to run to, gather up in his arms, and hug and kiss and cry with, but his duty beckoned just a little bit louder. It had to. He had a responsibility he couldn't reject. As he slouched down on one of the leather chairs in front of the 'breaking news' banner on the TV, he regretted the choice he had to make.
- - -
Abbey left the hospital and drove home in a frenzy, passing crowds of pedestrians on Elm Street who had stopped to watch media reports on television sets in storefronts. CNN had been carrying it all along, but immediately after the lift-off, all the broadcast stations cut regular programming for wall-to-wall coverage. The most recognizable face of the launch was Christa McAuliffe's. She had gained such notoriety for being chosen the first civilian to fly on the shuttle that even without her name on the graphics, everyone knew who she was.
Seeing it over and over while at a stoplight at a busy intersection, all Abbey could think about was her middle daughter. She remembered the way Ellie's eyes lit up the night she was told that NASA wanted to send a teacher to space. She remembered the way Ellie skipped out of the airport terminal when she and Jed returned from space camp, giddy with the news they had learned of plans for the Challenger. She remembered the night she and Ellie hung the poster of Christa McAuliffe on her bedroom wall, and the excitement in her 11-year-old voice after Jed introduced her to her hero. Seeing the explosion on TV would have been difficult regardless, but Ellie had come to idolize the Challenger crew. She knew everything about them and one day hoped that she might follow in their footsteps. Her enthusiasm and admiration made the accident a billion times worse - for her and for her family.
As Abbey walked into the house, she shouted upstairs for her daughters. "GIRLS?"
Liz had just come out of the kitchen and was on heading toward the foyer. "Mom!"
Abbey saw her oldest daughter standing just a few feet away, grief-stricken with an unmistakable look of sadness on her face. She rushed toward Liz, her arms wide open. "Were you watching?"
"They had it on during lunch."
"Oh God."
Liz held her mom tight, her fingers curling around the fabric of Abbey's coat and her eyes shut, allowing tears to trail from under her lashes. She took a few seconds to hug her, then pulled out of the embrace, telling her, "Ellie needs you."
Abbey lovingly wiped Liz's face and pressed her palm to the teenager's cheek to stroke it when she was finished. "Where is she?"
"Upstairs with Mrs. Wilburforce." Liz gestured with the ice pack in her hand. "Zoey sprained her ankle."
"Did Zoey see it?"
"No. They were at the doctor's. Mrs. Wilburforce turned off the radio in the car. We had to tell her what happened when she saw how upset Ellie was, but she hasn't watched any television."
Their arms wrapped around each other, the two women started up the steps.
- - -
"I understand what you're going through. I have three girls, two of whom were also watching."
Back in Washington, Jed was fielding calls from constituents, many of them parents dealing with grieving children. He personally talked to as many as he could, trying to offer some kind of comfort while his staff coordinated with several New Hampshire school districts to set up an emergency hotline for other resources. Michael was sifting through the faxes and memos that were pouring into the office by the second as he waited for Jed to finish up one of the phone calls.
"We need to get to the White House," he said after Jed hung up.
"Let me get my jacket," Jed replied, standing up to put on his suit jacket and retrieve his winter coat from the rack in the corner. "You know Michael Smith had been with NASA for six years? He was a graduate of the Naval Academy. He had three kids and a wife. This was his first space flight."
"Which one was he?"
"The pilot. The commander, Francis Scobee, went by the name 'Dick.' He flew on the Challenger in '84 to repair a satellite in orbit, which he did. He had a wife and two kids. Judith Resnik had flown on the Discovery as the second American woman in space. She was also a classical pianist. Did you know that?"
"I can't say I did." This was what Michael liked most about Jed. The man who had so much trouble remembering names, remembered these names today because it was important to him to humanize them, to recognize them as people who had lives and families outside of the space program - all of them, not just Christa McAuliffe, the one everyone knew.
"Ellison Onizuka was one of the specialists. He had logged 74 hours in space before this mission. He was on active duty with the Air Force until he joined NASA as an astronaut in 1978. He was also a husband and he had two daughters..." Jed stopped suddenly and looked up at Michael. "I have to call my girls again before we go."
Michael nodded. "I'll wait in the hall."
"Remind me to tell you about Ronald McNair and Gregory Jarvis when I'm done."
- - -
After Mrs. Wilburforce left, Abbey tended to Zoey with an ice pack to her sprained ankle, then slipped into Ellie's room, mentally prepared she thought, to hear her middle daughter's account of what she had been through. But no matter how ready she was, it couldn't stop the ache in her heart when she heard the anguish in Ellie's voice.
"As soon as it left the ground, everyone was clapping and yelling and jumping up and down. It was so great...and then it was like a burst of fire and smoke...more than before. The whole thing separated. It was like two balls of smoke flying through the sky in opposite directions. I thought it was the rocket boosters...it didn't look right. And they said something I couldn't hear...on TV, I mean. They said something at first and I couldn't hear what. The kids all thought it was still okay so they were hollering, but it wasn't okay. That wasn't how they showed it to us at space camp...that wasn't supposed to happen."
'That wasn't supposed to happen,' Ellie said repeatedly. She struggled with her words as she cried in her mother's arms. Never had she seen something so horrific unfold the way it had that morning. Ever since her week at space camp, she had been looking forward to watching the shuttle soar into the sky and in less than a two-minute span that day, all the hopes and dreams she'd had for months had been shattered.
Abbey sat on her daughter's bed, right under that famed poster of Christa McAuliffe, clinging to the young girl as she trembled while telling the story of the joy that instantly turned to chaos in the classroom. "Did you know what was going on?"
"Not for sure. But then the NASA guy said there was a problem and then he said it exploded and Mrs. Gordon turned off the TV really fast. She said we couldn't watch anymore."
Ellie's sobs grew louder, which made Abbey cry as she held her.
"Did she talk to you about it?"
"She tried. I asked her if they could still be alive, but she didn't say anything. You could tell she wanted to cry too."
"I'm so sorry, sweetheart."
"Why did it happen?" Ellie pulled away slightly to look up at her mother. "Was it NASA's fault? Did they do something wrong?"
"We don't know yet."
"But they're supposed to check everything. So many people work on the space shuttle. They're not supposed to launch unless everything's the way it's supposed to be. Why did they launch? Why?"
"I don't know, baby." It was tearing Abbey apart, hearing Ellie so heartbroken.
"Mom?" Liz, who was across the hall with Zoey to give Ellie a chance to talk to Abbey alone, poked her head in. "Dad's on the phone."
"Tell him I'll be right there." Abbey grabbed a tissue off Ellie's nightstand, dabbed at her daughter's tears, then dried her own before getting up to take the call.
Wanting to calm her sister, Liz made her way to Ellie's bed. "Do you want some gummy bears? Zoey and I found a whole bag in the kitchen."
Ellie shook her head, wiping her tears. "No thanks."
"What can I do, El?"
"Nothing."
Out in the hall, Abbey picked up the receiver. "Jed?"
"Hey."
"How are you?" She could hear the tension in his voice.
"Hanging in there. You?"
"Ellie's confused and upset and Liz...I barely had a chance to talk to Liz. When are you coming home?"
"I don't know." He hated telling her that.
"What do you mean?"
"I have meetings at the White House well into the evening. The President's canceling the State of the Union tonight. He's going live with this. I have to be here for the speech after all is said and done."
"Of course. It should have occurred to me. Of course you'd need to stay."
The disappointment in her voice only made him feel more guilty. "I'm sorry, Abbey. I wish I could be there."
"I understand why you can't."
"Explain it to the girls? I didn't have the heart to tell Liz."
"I'll take care of it. Jed?"
"Yeah?"
"How could this have happened? How could they not have prepared for it?" After consoling Ellie, Abbey wasn't thinking reasonably. She was a Mama Bear, upset that she couldn't protect her cub.
"It was an accident, honey," Jed said.
"Why didn't NASA feed it to the schools on tape delay? How could they have let children be watching live, in real-time? Didn't they consider the possibility that something might go wrong?"
"No one could have predicted..."
"It's happened before. This wasn't the first shuttle explosion. Didn't they learn anything from Apollo 1?" Though she didn't see the Challenger explode, Abbey was sick with sorrow in the aftermath and her concern for her daughters was her primary focus.
"Abbey, neither you nor I saw this coming either. No one did."
"I've got two traumatized kids here, Jed, and I don't know what to do. I don't know how to help them, I don't know how to take away their pain. What am I supposed to do?"
Jed took a beat and reluctantly gave the only answer he could. "Sweetheart, I wish I could go back in time and stop this from ever happening...or at least, keep them from watching."
"But you can't and neither can I. I'm their mother and I've never felt so useless."
"You have no idea how much I'd give to be with you right now."
She did know. If there was any way, Jed would have been on the next flight to Manchester. "You have no idea how much I'd give to have you with me right now. I just want to put my arms around you. I need you."
"We'll get through this, just like we do everything else."
"When can you come home?"
"Before morning, I hope. I'm going to try to head to the airport after the speech. And speaking of that, my staff's waiting. I have to get to the White House. Tell the girls I love them?"
"I will."
"Abbey?"
"Yeah?"
"I love you."
"I love you too. Take care of yourself and call me when you book a flight."
Jed nodded. "Bye."
"Bye." Abbey hung up the phone and turned to see Zoey standing there on her bad ankle, holding her ice pack.
"I want Daddy."
"So do I, sunshine." She scooped Zoey up in her arms and carried her to Ellie's room.
"When's he coming home?" Liz asked when she saw her mom.
"Not for a while," Abbey answered. "He's meeting with the President."
Ordinarily, Liz would have been proud of her father for meeting with the President of the United States, but today, she was disappointed. "For how long?"
"I don't know."
"What about us?"
"He'll be home as soon as he can."
'As soon as he can?' The words echoed silently in Liz's mind. Like Ellie, she was feeling the affects of the explosion - the helpless agony of watching people die - and what she wanted most in the world was to throw her arms around her father and cry on his shoulder. He would have helped her through it. He always did. Liz had such a strong bond with Jed that just seeing his face during a crisis would have put her at ease. But she wasn't going to get that opportunity, at least not for a while.
Crushed, she spat out, "Sometimes, I really hate politics!"
And with that, she ran out of the room.
"LIZ!" Abbey started to go after her.
"Mom?" Ellie called out.
"Yeah?"
"I don't want Dad to fly."
- - -
"Is Abbey pissed that you're not coming home?" Michael asked Jed as the two men left the Rayburn House Office Building.
"She understands," Jed said. "At some point, we're going to talk about damage control, right? I don't mean political damage control, I mean real damage control."
"I don't follow."
"This was a public relations disaster to the 10th degree, I recognize that. But more importantly, we've traumatized God only knows how many children all around the country. These kids are going to fear the space program and space shuttles until the end of time, not to mention aviation in general. For many of them, this is their first experience with death. Now we can have these meetings and, what I'm sure will be, congressional hearings in the future, but we owe it to these kids and to their families to talk with them directly. We have to tell them what happened, how it happened, why it happened, and how we're going to prevent it from happening again. We have to take an active role in helping them heal. It's our responsibility."
Michael had never been more pleased to serve Jed Bartlet. In the midst of such a catastrophe, not only had he managed to keep a cool head when talking with distressed constituents, but he had also started thinking about the future and just like always, his focus was on the people and not on the politics.
"We'll talk about how to do that," Michael promised, walking fast to keep up with his boss.
"Good. I want to set up townhall forums in New Hampshire when I get back. I want Q&A's with students from all over the state."
"That sounds like a good plan."
"And I'd appreciate it if we could reiterate the names of the men and women who perished this morning in our press releases. Or hell, even when talking to irate parents on the phone. Those astronauts are heroes, just like they were yesterday. They didn't die in vain."
"I'll talk to Samantha. We'll take care of it."
- - -
Elizabeth Bartlet sank face-first into the pillows on her bed, her emotions tumbling around violently inside her. She didn't understand why she was feeling the way she was - Ellie was the one so invested in the shuttle launch - but she was grieving too. With all the news reports that had flooded the airwaves in the past year, she couldn't escape the publicity of this launch, not in New Hampshire. She had seen the footage countless times, the pictures, the posters all leading up to this day. To see it end so tragically before her eyes was like a punch to the gut that took her breath away and stung her to her core.
She laid quietly on her belly as Abbey invited herself into her room.
"Your dad IS trying to come home to us," Abbey started, sitting on her bed and stroking her hair. "Don't be angry at him, not now."
"Tell me I'm being selfish."
"I wasn't going to say that."
"Why not? It's true." Liz knew that so many others were depending on Jed. She acknowledged it and was proud of it, but it didn't take away the little girl inside of her who just wanted her daddy to make her feel safe again.
"It's not true."
"His job is helping people and I just said I hate his job."
"But I know you didn't mean it. You don't hate his job, you hate that it's keeping him away from us." Abbey grabbed her shoulder and rolled her onto her back. "Right?"
Liz averted her eyes in silent agreement. "I want him to come home. I want us all to be together."
"We will be - soon. For the time being, I'm here, and there's one of me and three of you so come with me back to Ellie's room, huh?"
"Maybe later."
"Lizzie," Abbey nudged. "You don't have to be by yourself tonight. Ellie was the one excited about it, but that doesn't mean you weren't affected too. I'm here for both of you." She took Liz's hand and looked her in the eye. "And I need you as much as you need me."
Liz sat up then. Their hands clasped, mother and daughter stood up to leave Liz's room.
- - -
"Today is a day for mourning and remembering. Nancy and I are pained to the core by the tragedy of the shuttle Challenger. We know we share this pain with all of the people of our country. This is truly a national loss."
Gathered around the television that evening, Abbey, Liz, Ellie, and Zoey watched President Ronald Reagan address a nation still reeling from the events of the morning. It was only 24 hours earlier that the four of them were chatting away before bed, about boys and first loves, cheery and carefree, as if life was splendid. But there was nothing carefree about them now. The stress of the day had worn them down. Emotionally drained, the girls held onto their mother - tight. They were safe in the cocoon of Abbey's embrace and yet, there was still a void in the room and everyone felt it. It was a hole left by Jed. The Bartlets had faced troubled times before, but never with Jed so far away.
"We've never had a tragedy like this. And perhaps we've forgotten the courage it took for the crew of the shuttle. But they, the Challenger Seven, were aware of the dangers, but overcame them and did their jobs brilliantly. We mourn seven heroes: Michael Smith, Dick Scobee, Judith Resnik, Ronald McNair, Ellison Onizuka, Gregory Jarvis, and Christa McAuliffe. We mourn their loss as a nation together."
In Washington, Jed was at the White House in an adjacent room to the Oval Office. His thoughts began with the astronauts and their devastated relatives. Christa McAuliffe's husband, parents, and children had traveled to the Kennedy Space Center to see the launch in person. He could only imagine the pride they felt at lift-off, pride that soon turned to terror. Whatever the rest of the country was feeling was nothing compared to the nightmare the families of the Challenger Seven were now confronting, especially the children. That thought only reminded Jed of his own kids. What were they doing? What were they feeling? Was Ellie still sobbing? Were Liz and Zoey crying? And what about Abbey? Was she overwhelmed without him there to help? Was she feeling alone and powerless, at a loss for words, struggling with an explanation to numb their daughters' heartache? He would have given anything to be with her, to hold her, and tell her how much he loved her. His focus shifted back to the speech then, a silent prayer on his lips for the seven heroes and the loved ones who would never see them again.
"For the families of the seven," President Reagan continued, "we cannot bear, as you do, the full impact of this tragedy. But we feel the loss, and we're thinking about you so very much. Your loved ones were daring and brave, and they had that special grace, that special spirit that says, 'Give me a challenge, and I'll meet it with joy.' They had a hunger to explore the universe and discover its truths. They wished to serve, and they did. They served all of us."
At the farmhouse, Abbey watched the faces of her three daughters as they listened carefully to the President transitioning to address them specifically.
"And I want to say something to the schoolchildren of America who were watching the live coverage of the shuttle's take-off," Reagan said. "I know it's hard to understand, but sometimes painful things like this happen. It's all part of the process of exploration and discovery. It's all part of taking a chance and expanding man's horizons. The future doesn't belong to the fainthearted; it belongs to the brave. The Challenger crew was pulling us into the future, and we'll continue to follow them."
Liz, Ellie, and Zoey seemed mesmerized. Stray tears rolled down their cheeks unchecked. Their features crinkled and there were mournful sighs, but they continued to listen. Abbey, sandwiched between the two older girls, held Ellie's hand, stroked Liz's back, and kept Zoey glued to her lap as they all stared at the television, absorbing the rest of the President's speech.
"I've always had great faith in and respect for our space program. And what happened today does nothing to diminish it. We don't hide our space program. We don't keep secrets and cover things up. We do it all up front and in public. That's the way freedom is, and we wouldn't change it for a minute. We'll continue our quest in space. There will be more shuttle flights and more shuttle crews and, yes, more volunteers, more civilians, more teachers in space. Nothing ends here; our hopes and our journeys continue."
Ellie wept as Abbey dropped a kiss to the top of her head and wrapped an arm around her to hold her close for the final remarks.
"The crew of the space shuttle Challenger honored us by the manner in which they lived their lives. We will never forget them, nor the last time we saw them - this morning, as they prepared for their journey and waved goodbye and 'slipped the surly bonds of earth' to 'touch the face of God.'"
TBC