Close Call

Morgan Cox has spent the last 12 years of his life working construction in Resolute Bay, the second most northern community in Canada. The best part of his ten months away from home is usually the flight back to his wife and Michelle and their two young children each December. Not this time.
Cox, 11 other passengers and two crew members aboard a chartered flight from Resolute Bay to Yellowknife experienced a rough landing when the aircraft missed the runway in Cambridge Bay while attempting to land for a scheduled fuel stop. Instead of hitting the runway they landed in an icy, rocky field about 1.5 kilometres south of the runway at 1:45 a.m. MT on Saturday, December 13th.
Cox was up front, directly behind the pilot. “I could see the runway lights right there and I watched the pilot do his thing. He put the flaps down and did all the normal stuff they do for a landing, but then we started to descend faster and faster and then we hit solid,” he says.
Cox says it took about ten seconds for his life to flash before his eyes. When he realized he was still alive he and the other passengers aboard got out of the plane as quickly as they could. “When we hit everyone on her was like they were frozen for about half a minute but then we got out pretty fast. The passengers on the left side of the plane had seen fire coming out of the engines on their side just before we crashed, so we pretty much were in a rush to get out. Thinking back now I can’t believe how calm we all were.”
Incredibly, no one was seriously injured.
There were other Newfoundlanders aboard. Besides Cox’s brother, Wayne, from Terrenceville there were two other men from the Burin Peninsula and another from the Mount Pearl area. All were trying to get home to their family’s in time for Christmas.
The men, all dressed in light layers for travel, took a moment to assess their odds in the -41 degree temperatures. The plane itself was a “write off” according to Cox. While the left side of the plane was almost like new the right side-the side he had been traveling on-was practically destroyed. Also destroyed was the nose of the plane, the tip of the right wing, the engine and the landing gear. “The moon was out and you could see off about 100 feet away from where we landed was all these rocks. If we would have hit that instead of the softer snow where we struck then you wouldn’t be talking to me today,” he says. The men waited to see if the plane would catch fire. When they felt it was safe enough, and the cold began to set in, the men climbed back on board to wait for rescue. “We bundled up in these engine blankets and those emergency blankets and just waited.”
The pilot had a cell phone and called for help. The rough landing also set off the airplane's transmitter beacon and a local resident discovered the downed plane 40 minutes after it crashed. Within four hours everyone was transported by snowmobile into Cambridge Bay to be assessed before being flown to Yellowknife on another Summit Air plane. From there the men took a flight to Edmonton, changed planes and headed for home.
“It was rough having to get on the same kind of airplane you just crashed in, but there was no other way home so we didn’t have much choice.” Cox and the other men just wanted to get home as fast-and as safely-as they could.
While the voice recorder from the airplane's cockpit has been sent to Ottawa for analysis and investigators with the federal Transportation Safety Board were investigating the incident Cox says the pilots were saying the crash was caused by “an optical illusion.” “The pilots said that weather like we had that night plays tricks on the eyes and they just missed their mark as they were landing. They said we went down too fast.”
Whatever the cause, Cox says he is just happy to be home. “It didn’t really hit me until I pulled into the driveway. Then I realized what a close call it really was.”

Melina's Tale

Chatting with Melinda Flannigan breaks my heart. She and I live similar lives-her husband, Freddie, works in Alberta on a 20 and eight rotation- yet somehow her story seems so much more tragic than mine. While I often laugh about and celebrate the lifestyle that allows our family to remain in rural Newfoundland, she is sad-guilty even- much of the time. “When I had to drop Freddie off this last time so he could go away I think it was the hardest time ever,” she says. Freddie will miss their sixth wedding anniversary on July 13th. Blair missed our last two-our 17th and 18th . While we didn’t pay much attention to either one Melinda is genuinely broken hearted. She fills up so often during our chat that I find myself questioning my own reactions as I live the life of an oil patch widow.
“Each time he leaves I think it gets worse. No matter how many times we go through this it never gets any easier,” she tells me. While sometimes I admit the leaving can be tough, for me it’s more the day or so before that things seem the roughest. Instead of becoming sad, I usually turn a little surly. So much to be done around the house and Blair’s gone trouting? Or hanging out down on the wharf? The man might as well be away, I tell myself. And often, I believe it. I step into her raw, emotion-filled shoes for a moment and I feel something so uncomfortable I quickly discard them. My way is better, I decide.
Melinda and I have a few things in common. Our husbands have been working a similar rotation for around the same length of time-just over 16 months. They both held jobs close to home before going back to school to get a trade, one that would put them in high demand in the Alberta Oil Sands- her husband is a third-year pipe fitter, mine a second-year Instrumentation Mechanic. Our husbands both worked away for a longer period of time-mine six and hers three months-before securing rotation work. We both have only children-she an almost five year-old daughter, me an 11 year- old son.
But there are also many differences. I live in an outport, she in an urban centre- Marystown- a place where I thought having an absentee spouse wouldn’t be a huge deal. After all, everything she needs is right at her finger tips. She isn’t nearly as isolated as I am. Right? According to Melinda, those differences only serve to makes things worse. First of all, while I live amongst a group of women living the same life, raising children under similar circumstances, she is the only oil-patch widow in her peer group. “I’m always feeling left out. Isolated. There’s no one I can call on who understands,” she says. She is also close enough to employment opportunities to question, almost on a daily basis, their current lifestyle. Having the shipyard close is a constant reminder of what could be, she tells me. I have twelve years on the 26 year-old Melinda and I wonder how I would have reacted being away from my husband for that long at such a young age. Having a daughter also seems to make a difference. Where our son seems fine, accepting a revolving door daddy as normal, (he is, after all, just like the rest of his buddies) their young daughter, Kalei, cries for her daddy regularly-especially at night. “She wonders why her daddy can’t be home for supper like poppy is, or she’ll ask why so-and so’s daddy is home while hers isn’t.”
“He’s missing so much of our daughters life. So much he isn’t here to see that it kills me emotionally,” she says, crying once more. This time she gets me and I find myself holding back tears of my own. We will soon have a new baby, one who will experience many firsts, firsts my husband could quite possibly miss. I struggle to regain my composure, but this time, she has me. “I call women like us part-time single mom’s. We have to do all the disciplining while at the same time providing our children with enough love, patience and understanding to make up for the parent whose away,” she says.
Melinda does her best, but there is one thing she says she hasn’t quite figured out how to handle. “When Kalei cries for her daddy there seems nothing I can do to ease her pain, so I let her cry, even as my own heart breaks for her and for me,” she says.
While Melinda outlines things she finds the hardest, she also reminds me that our husbands have it worse. “Freddie will try to call when he can, but sometimes with the time difference it can be difficult,” she says. Freddie experiences his own bout of the guilt’s while away, she says. “He’s sad for me, thinking of what I have to deal with alone. He’ll cry on the phone or when he has to leave to catch his flight.”
Before I fall apart, I change the subject. Let’s talk about the money, I prod her, looking for a smile. No doubt, that is a bonus, she says. Still, even that doesn’t quite cut it for her. Three years ago their family lived in a run down apartment. They had no vehicle. Today they own their own home and have a car to drive. “I know you can’t live off nothing, but sometimes I question if it’s really all worth it,” she says.
“When I go to bed each night there’s only an empty feeling. No one to talk to, no one to cuddle with. Do you find that?” she asks.
Part of me wants to tell her that it gets easier, to toughen up, but I can’t. Again I choke up and I have to acknowledge something I’d rather not admit to.
Melinda lives with the hope that her husband might be home working for Kiewit soon. Home for supper each evening after a hard day working at the shipyard. Freddie has already applied. It reminds me to send an application in for Blair-something we haven’t gotten around to doing yet.
Again, I wonder about how hard-hearted I have become. I decide I couldn’t live like Melinda does everyday-so sad with raw emotion. Its not that those same emotions aren’t there; I just choose to ignore them.
A chat with Melinda shows just how close to the surface those feelings really are. And I’m not sure how to quite feel about that.

I'm Fine and Other Lies...

It has been a tragic Christmas for too many throughout Newfoundland and Labrador.
Residents of Bell Island recently laid to rest three children who died in a house fire just five days before Christmas and while the community of Upper Island Cove hasn't given up the search for two teenagers who went missing when their ATV went over a cliff into the water below, all that has been recovered thus far is the ATV the were riding and one boot.Then, on Boxing Day, an accident in St. John’s claimed the lives of two men in their 40's when one vehicle turned the wrong way into oncoming traffic. Tragic indeed. But the weeks leading up to the holiday’s weren’t much brighter. A 20 year old woman from Corner Brook was killed in a traffic accident on the Trans Canada Highway on Dec. 18th when a westbound car and an eastbound pickup truck collided near Goobies in the middle of the afternoon. And, on December 3, a hunter from Brooklyn, Bonavista Bay was reported missing after he failing to return home. Police and Search and Rescue converged on the small community in an effort to find the 28 year old, but those efforts failed.
That same week a French cargo vessel was lost just south of Marystown off the Burin Peninsula. Four men were killed after the Cap Blanc got into trouble in three-metre seas, as the winds gusted to 63 kms/hr.
And there was more tragic and heartbreaking headlines hailing from Afghanistan. Pte. Justin Peter Jones was killed after a roadside bomb destroyed the vehicle he and his platoon were travelling in. He was buried in his hometown of Baie Verte the day before Christmas Eve.
With each new headline Karen Coultas found facing the holiday’s with cheer and merriment more difficult. “I just know what the parents of every dear, precious child who is lost are going through. Every time I hear someone else’s child has died it brings me right back to the day Zachary died. The pain is indescribable,” she says.
Coultas lost her six year-old son, Zachary, when he was struck by a dump truck while out riding his bicycle in their Airport Heights neighbourhood.
Coultas says going through the experience of loosing any loved one is difficult enough, but loosing a child is something no one should ever have to go through, yet so many do.
“When someone become a parent, there is no denying it; life changes. From the very beginning children take on the highest priority and most parents go to great lengths to keep their children safe. We forgo sleep, energy and privacy, placing a child's needs ahead of our own. Our goal is to protect them from danger,” she says. “No one deserves to go through the pain of loosing a child. No one.”
Since Zachary’s death there are strong, powerful emotions Coultas says she deals with every day. Shock, check. Disbelief, check. Anger. “Oh, I’ve been in and out of that one, let me tell you,” she says. Anger at the truck driver, anger at herself for allowing her son out of her sight. The list of emotional up’s and down’s is endless, she says.
What Coultas is going through is heartbreakingly common for those grieving the loss of a child, explains Colleen Wells, a manager for pastoral care and ethics with Eastern Health. “When a child dies it’s quite natural for parents to experience an over-whelming sense of failure; their protective efforts failed. No matter what age a child is when they die parents feel the death was unfair for the natural order of things is for a parent to die first. Anything else is surely against nature,” she says.
Mary Steele, a grieving mother and local founder of Compassionate Friends agrees.
“Mothers care for young children both physical and emotionally. We’ve fed them, bathed them, changed and dressed them, cuddled them and held them in our arms,” she says. Whether family’s have been through a long, all consuming battle with an illness, or suffer from the trauma that a sudden death brings, the circumstances don‘t seem to matter more than the basic raw fact that a child is forever gone and each death brings its own particular burdens, she explains.
But there are things that family and friends of someone who has lost a child can do to help.
The first thing you must do is reach out. “When you loose a child you feel like a diseased person no one wants to be around. Everyone feels awkward. People are afraid to say or do anything that might make you cry, so sadly many just stay away and that’s definitely the wrong thing to do,” explains Coultas.
Steele agrees. “The best thing for anyone to do is just say whatever they feel emotionally. If you feel sorry, say so. If you feel sad, express that. Sometimes though just saying nothing is best. If your afraid something spoken might backfire, then just offer a hug and leave it at that,” she says.
There are certainly things you shouldn’t say in such circumstances. Steele lost her 15 year-old son, Danny to suicide just days before Christmas in 1988 and she says she could write a book on what not to say. “Some told me to be grateful for my other children. Others questioned the circumstances of the death, which wasn’t helpful to me at all at the time. But the worst was the people who just avoided me altogether. I needed to talk about Danny. I needed other people to talk about him, to say they missed him like I did. I still need people to talk about him today,” she says.



Never assume someone is over the death of a child, no matter how long ago it occurred, she advises.
That is something Coultas is finding particularly challenging as she faces her second year of grief. “All the firsts; the first birthday without Zachary, the first day of school when he wasn’t there and all the other children were, the first Halloween, the first Christmas, everyone reached out to me on those occassions, but now that all the firsts are over with its almost like I’m supposed to be cured and done with it,” she says. Coultas says she is far from done.

Kay Kennedy lost her son Kevin when he was killed in Afghanistan. “It will be two years this April and all my firsts were a blur,” she says. In fact Kennedy is finding her second Christmas without Kevin worst that the first. “That first year I was like on auto-pilot. I was on the ball. I had everything bought, wrapped and ready to go in November. This year I was lucky to get the tree up.”
Kennedy says sometimes shock and denial was all that got her through that first year. “That’s why having people reach out to me now is so important. I don’t want Kevin to be forgotten and to forget that I’m grieving is to forget that he was ever here if that makes sense,” she says.
Reaching out, mention his name, and see what happens, she says.
Kennedy has another tip; don’t criticize or question the response you get in return. “Many times memories of Kevin will make me cry, but other times they might make me laugh. Either is fine, don’t expect me to be always happy, but don’t expect to find me always sad and depressed either,” she says.
Steele has some advise for those who are dealing the loss of a loved one. “Always remember that person lived and its fine to remember them however you feel appropriate,” she advised. For some it might be a special ornament, or displaying a photo. For others creating a quiet spot in a garden might work best. “Grief and grieving is unique, even though there are things that are common in every case its important to recognize that grieving is almost an anything goes and expect anything emotion.”
“Bottom line is you do what you can do and do your own little thing to remember your child. If you want to veg out and go for a walk, by all means, do that. If you’d rather surround yourselves with friends and family, well, that’s fine also.”
Bottom line is to combine grieving into your life in whatever healthy way you can for however long it takes, she says.
There are no time limits on grief.
Impact of Loss: The Grieving ProcessWhen a loved one is dying or dies, there is a grieving process. Recovery is a slow and emotionally painful one. The grieving process can be less painful if you try to understand that loss and grief is a natural part of life. Try to believe in yourself. Believe that you can cope with tragic happenings. Let your experience be a personal growth process that will help you to deal with future stressful events.
The grieving process usually consists of the following stages. Note that not everyone goes through all these stages.
Denial and ShockAt first, it may be difficult for you to accept death of a loved. As a result you will deny the reality of death. However, this denial will gradually diminish as you begin to express and share your feelings about death and dying with other family member friends.
AngerDuring this stage the most common question asked is "why me? ". You are angry at what you perceive to be the unfairness of death and you may project and displace your anger unto others. When given some social support and respect, you will eventually become less angry and able to move into the next stage of grieving.
BargainingMany grieving individuals try to bargain with God. They probably try to bargain and offer to give up an enjoyable part of their lives in exchange for the return of health or the lost person.
GuiltYou may find yourself feeling guilty for things you did or didn't do prior to the loss. Accept your humanness. You accepted the humanness of the person who died. They would want you to do the same for you. Sometimes there can be indignities that your loved one went through. When you have a harsh flashback consider the huge challenge they faced and the courage they displayed.
DepressionYou have experienced a great loss. Mood fluctuations and feelings of isolation and withdrawal may follow. It takes time to become socially involved in what's going on around you.
Please note that encouragement and reassurance to the bereaved may or may not be helpful in this stage.
LonelinessAs you go through changes in your social life because of the loss, you may feel lonely and afraid. The more you are able to reach out to others and make new friends, the more this feeling lessens.
AcceptanceAcceptance does not mean happiness. Instead you accept and deal with the reality of the situation.
HopeEventually you will reach a point where remembering will be less painful and you can begin to look ahead to the future with hope, as your loved one would want you to.
Ways to Cope with Death and Dying
Discuss feelings such as loneliness, anger, and sadness openly and honestly with family and friends.
Maintain hope.
If your religious convictions are important to you, talk to a member of the clergy about your beliefs and feelings.
Join a support group.
Take good care of yourself. Eat well-balanced meals. Get moderate exercise and plenty of rest.
Be patient with yourself. It takes time to heal. Some days will be better than others.