why do such bad things happen to such nice people? (Tips on Coping)

Member Name: missmole

Product:	Tips on Coping
Date:	09/05/05 (124 review reads)
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Many people throughout their lives have terrible things happen to them or to people within their family. Some of these things are known about others our sudden. I thought I would share with you something terrible that happened in my family that caused devastation and unhappiness to us all.

My step father- Richard, used to fly planes as a hobby on a regular basis. He owned 3 beautiful light aircrafts one of which was a vintage 2nd world war plane which he had lovingly restored himself. Every weekend he would enjoy flying to different places in the country whether to see other flying friends or to enter in flying competitions which he always managed to come first or second in because of his great experience of flying, as he had done it from the age of 16. He would take us flying when we wanted, to the Isle of Wight, France and even Minorca. Flying was his passion. We all enjoyed it too, but never did we think anything bad would happen, not until the 15th august 1998. This was the day that this passion was ended after a devastating incident.

It was a beautiful sunny Saturday, not even a cloud was in site. This of course would mean Richard would be flying today. He set of in the morning, after saying good bye to us all and saying to me “you have been so good recently” and giving me £5, he set off for a day of flying- without knowing that we were never going to be seeing each other again.

Richard would always ring us if he was going to be late home, it got to 6pm and there was no call. Then the telephone rang. Thinking it would be him, mum picked up the phone. It wasn’t him. It was his friend saying that there had been a plane crash and that the passenger of Richards’s aircraft had a broken arm, we were not told about Richard at this time. I looked out of the window and saw a police man. I told my mum and the blood drained from her face. I didn’t understand what was going on. She rushed downstairs and her and the police man went into another room. That 15 minutes felt like 3 hours. She opened the door and me and my sister walked in. We sat down together and we were told what had happened. It was the worst thing, it was something I never thought I would hear.

Richard had been attending a Fly-in in Bedfordshire with his friend, when the palne they were in ( his vintage Fairchild Cornell) plummeted 200ft to the ground near Woburn Abbey. The passenger escaped with only a broken arm. Richard however did not make it. His death was instantaneous. He had multiple injuries and died as the plane crashed to the ground. The whole front of the plane was crushed there was no way he could have survived. When realising that the plane was going to crash and that there was nothing he could do, he didn’t panic he was just chatting to his passenger, talking him through it, slowly reassuring him and telling him he would be fine, that was until the plane crashed to his death. The injuries Richard received were major: intracerebral haemorrhage, fractures of the skull, ribs, clavicle, left ankle, right tibia, right radius and ulna.

I couldn’t believe this had happened, why did it happen to such a lovely person? I never thought that it would ever happen to him. But I was wrong. I suppose anything can happen in our lives, both good and bad and many things that are not expected. We just have to learn to cope and think of all the happy memories that fill our hearts.
The person the most devastated was his daughter Jessica, who was 6 at the time. The sad thing is, now 5 years on, she says she cannot remember her daddy, not how he spoke, what he was like or anything. We make sure that we talk about him regularly and let her know of the wonderful things he did in his life.

I know that if we both could wish for anything we wanted, we would wish for him to be back with us today.

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