He Was Someone's Son

Monday, September 22, 2008

I was reading a Sac Bee news report this morning about a chartered jet that crashed in South Carolina late this past Friday night. The jet was carrying 6 people: Travis Barker (former drummer of Blink 182), Adam Goldstein (DJ AM), Chris Baker, Charles Still, and pilots Sarah Lemmon and James Bland. The only survivors were Barker and Goldstein. When I read the names of the two musicians, I knew who they were from the MTV VMAs that were on the other night. DJ AM would play tunes on the turn tables and Barker would improvise over the top and create impressive fills and beats during the commercials for the awards show.

On the one hand, people die every minute of every day, from the unborn to the very elderly, so why is this something different? Why should this accident become something to me?The headline for the story was something like "Roseville man dies in Musician's Plane crash" or something like that, and all of a sudden, I wanted to know who this local guy, Chris Baker, was. Chris was only 29 years old. He wasn't someone without family; he was someone who was about to celebrate his first wedding anniversary (next month) who also had a 2 year old son and he had a mom and dad...he was someone. (I'll come back to this in a minute..) In a matter of a few minutes, I was able to read about him, his love of cars, his love of mechanics, his love of his wife, his love of his son, of his parents, of his friends and on and on. I felt like i was getting to know him, though he is now before the King. This crash brought him into the view of people who otherwise wouldn't know he lived.

The focus of the media is on Barker and Goldstein, and who can blame them for their focus? They are the only two of the six people whose names are familiar to a large musical culture. No one in that same culture probably had a clue who the remaining four other people are, let alone the reading public as a whole, but those four other people were people who had lives, friends, families, colleagues, work-mates and on and on. The story I read first was about Chris Baker and then after reading that, I searched to find out more about the crash and on it went. I don't know anything about the other three people who died; I wish I did know something about them so I could share it on here with you. Their memory deserves to be remembered just as much as remembering the two surviving musicians who will now be the focus of tons of fan emails, get-well letters, posters, video exposes and regular updates from the hospital staff. There won't be much of any updates in the future for Chris Baker, Charles Still, Sarah Lemmon and James Bland; they died in the crash and fire. But I feel we should remember them, to some extent; we should remember to think of, and even pray for, their families and friends who are now experiencing the most massive emotional "black-whole" in their personal lives because their loved ones died so unexpectedly. From what I read, I believe that Barker and Goldstein are devastated by the loss of their friends, Baker in particular, and this writing is in NO WAY being critical of them or their fame or attention. This is just because I felt so strongly that I should write something for the four other people who whose families are as impacted as Barker's and Goldstein's, but whose names are only noted in the final sentence of the article.

In the second paragraph above, I wrote "He wasn't someone without family; he was someone who was about to celebrate his first wedding anniversary (next month) who also had a 2 year old son and he had a mom and dad...he was someone (I'll come back to this in a minute..)" and when I noted that I would come back to it, it was because everyone who dies IS someone. Sounds pretty simple and straight forward, but I think that we often find ourselves comfortably at a distance from knowing much about those who've passed because of how much it hurts to know them and accept inside that they are no longer here with us, no longer someone that we can impact or touch. I think that, because I believe what I do and Who I believe in, that I should feel for those who experience loss and pray for those families and if possible, comfort those who are left behind to suffer the loss. Unfortunately, the millions who die all the time are dying facelessly to us (to me) and I often don't connect with knowing who they were, what they did, etc, and my spirit is learning how to grieve for those who are grieving as well. Though we don't know them, we hopefully will remember that they were someone and that, somewhere, there is a family who is grieving their loss.I'm not at all certain that I have done justice to my original thought regarding the daily losses of the unrecognized to me and us, but I tried to. I do believe that when I die, I will get to meet and see family that I never got to see or meet during my life and I want to be able to say that I had not forgotten them, if that makes sense...if it doesn't make sense to you, that's okay I guess, because it makes sense to me.

Until later-

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~The following news report is from Whyfame.com in their Gossip section (the end result of a link I clicked for the story...) http://www.whyfame.com/gossip/travis_barker_dj_am_expected_to_make_full_recovery_after_surviving_plane_crash_5799

"Travis Barker & DJ AM expected to make 'full recovery' after surviving plane crash"

For the few of you who haven't heard, former Blink-182 drummer Travis Barker and DJ AM were the sole survivors of a plane crash Saturday in South Carolina that left four people dead. The two had just performed at a free concert (above) near the University of South Carolina with Perry Farrell and Gavin Degraw. They are currently being treated at the Joseph M. Still Burn Center for second- and third- degree burns, the AP reports: "Anybody who can survive a plane crash is pretty lucky," Mullins told reporters during a news conference Sunday morning. Barker was burned on his torso and lower body and DJ AM, whose real name is Adam Goldstein, was burned on an arm and a portion of his scalp, according to a statement from the musicians' families released by the hospital. Mullins declined to discuss specific recovery times for the men, but said such injuries can take a year to fully heal. Both men are still in critical but stable condition, he said. Right before the crash, Travis and DJ AM were lucky enough to dive out of the plane while it was engulfed in flames. An eyewitness, William Owens, watched the wreckage careen across the highway in front of him and came upon the survivors: "I noticed two guys who were on fire and it looked like a dance: They didn't know what to do," said Owens, a 60-year-old delivery van driver. Goldstein had stripped off his own shirt and was helping Barker strip naked, said Owens, who was able to identify the men Saturday night because of news reports that showed Barker's extensive tattoos. Owens said Goldstein told him four other people were on board the jet, but the flames were too intense to get close. "'Oh my God' was all they were saying," Owens said of Barker and Goldstein. "They stood there and it's like — didn't know what to do. None of us did." According to a recording recovered from the cockpit by authorities, it appears a tire burst while the plane was near its 92 mph take-off speed. The Superficial wishes a healthy recovery for Travis Barker and DJ AM along with our sincere condolences to the families of Chris Baker, Charles Still, Sarah Lemmon and James Bland.