Surreal

It was about 2:45 pm. The kids were napping. I had just awakened from my short nap, and was reading Facebook on my phone. I heard the door knob to the bedroom make a sound, and I wondered why Brad was coming into the bedroom during naptime. He walked in hunched over a bit, with his hand on his chest. I knew something was wrong. The first thing that crossed my mind was, "Oh dear, he's having a heart attack." Followed by the thought that maybe his lunch wasn't sitting well and his tummy was hurting. I asked, "Are you ok?!" He said, "No. No I'm not." I asked what was wrong and he asked me to come into the bathroom.

I got up and followed him into our master bath, where he grabbed the mouthwash out of the medicine cabinet, took a swig, swished, and spit. And then said, "Landon crashed his plane."

I don't remember the exact details of our conversation after that but at some point I think I asked what that meant and he said, "He's gone."

Today, February 27, 2011, the world lost a man - a son, a brother, a husband, a father, an uncle, a cousin, a friend. Three others were also lost in the crash.

I'm numb. I'm in shock. I'm angry. I'm overwhelmingly grief-stricken (because "sad" is not a strong enough word for this raw, ugly emotion that makes my head pound and my stomach feel like it wants to empty its contents at any given moment). I want someone to pinch me and wake me up from this horrible, horrible nightmare. As a mother, my heart aches so terribly for my other mother-in-law (I have two) and father-in-law . As a wife, my heart is sickened and grieving for my sister-in-law and her 2.5 year-old son. As a sister, I am so very heartbroken for my husband and his other two brothers and their sister. I'm just devastated for the whole family and the friends.

We've been searching the web and twitter for details. Links I've run across:

Sea Plane forum (includes flight plan)

Zawya.com

Gulf News

Emirates - this one irritates me, if you look to the right you'll see a photo of an airplane exploding. It's not the actual aircraft.