_Live From Cape Canaveral_ - Jay Barbree [107]
I let my mind drift into the future. What if I should be selected as the first Journalist in Space? A magnificent obsession. My listeners would hear a commentary of absolute candor. That was a given. They would hear my reports of fears, of sensations, of exuberance, of wonder. I would take them along for the thundering and rattling ride through clouds and sky, through the heavens themselves, into orbit. Together, we would tumble as softly as a falling snowflake into weightlessness. There we would experience the thrill of swift sunrises and sunsets, of the whirling galaxies, the dancing nebulas, and the stars—so many, we so few.
To soar through space was indeed a magnificent obsession, and jogging was a minor price for me to pay for so much promise.
Running was not only a time to dream. It was also a time to think, to reflect, and give thanks. I’m not a staunch religious man, but I feel there is something more—something beyond this life.
My wife, Jo, and I had a son born five weeks premature November 22, 1964. The local hospital failed to take proper precautions. Our baby developed Hyland’s Membrane Disease a day after his birth, and we were doing everything we could to see he survived his underdeveloped lungs.
I had to visit longtime friend John Rivard, and during our conversation I received a thought message that our son had died. I visualized my wife sitting up in her hospital bed, crying. She needed me. I repeated the message I was receiving to John and headed for the hospital. We had named our son Scott, and when I arrived I found the scene precisely as I had received it in my mind.
“Scott’s dead, Jay,” Jo cried.
“I know,” I answered, “about ten minutes ago.”
We comforted each other, and, as John Rivard and I have agreed many times, my experience was real. I had in fact received the message by thought. Was it mental telepathy? Was it heaven sent? Whatever, it happened, and as my friend Dr. Gene McCall, the Princeton physicist told me, “There is much that cannot be explained by science. Perhaps, one day,” he added, “but not today. Just be grateful you had such an experience.”
I wiped the wetness from my face and turned my thoughts back to my run. I was growing tired. I was aware of the increasing strain on my body, but there was no cause for alarm. I imagine the strain was due to the extra pounds I had gained the previous eight days covering the arrival at Jacksonville’s Mayport Naval Station of a destroyer that had been hit by an Iraqi missile. Nevertheless I could feel the heavier air. My breaths were increasing in rapidity. My lungs were burning, but I reminded myself, no pain, no gain. Ahead I could see the finish line. I was tired, more tired than on any run I could remember, but I was determined to finish. No giving up…no quitting. If I was to be the first Journalist in Space, I must be willing to pay the price.
I was not aware of what was going on inside my chest. There was no pain. Only exhaustion. I was collapsing tired, and I looked up at our house, at the gray walkover above the sand dunes leading to the backyard. Suddenly, there was a rocking flutter inside my chest. It was there…
Blackness…
Only blackness… a pure, deep blackness, absent of dreams.
Doctors call it “sudden death.”
The little girl stared at my stilled body. She snickered as she watched the surf wash foam around my jogging shoes.
Her name was Christy. “Look at the funny man, Mommy,” she said. “He’s getting his shoes all wet.”
“Come on, Christy,” her mother ordered, grasping her little girl’s hand. “He’s drunk, honey. Stay away from him.”
I was later told that others near my lifeless body paid little notice. It wasn’t all that unusual to see a person lying on the crowded sand. Puzzling, but not alarming to most who made it a practice not to get involved.
David Frank, an engineer for RCA, was well into his daily walk as he approached my lifeless form.
“My God,” he spoke to no one. “That guy just jogged by me.”
He hurriedly knelt down and felt for my pulse. There was none.
Frank had spent many years on the Eastern Missile