In medias res , A Moment of Silence

Abstract

I must have been in third grade when the U.S. space shuttle Challenger exploded just 73 seconds after launch in 1986. I don’t remember the images we saw on the TV that day, but thirty years later I can recall the room we were in with crystalline clarity. Cramped in a cold classroom in Colorado, kids, teachers, and staff all juggled coats and jostled for position that January morning. We’d been pulled in early from recess in the cold, hustled hurriedly together so that we could watch the big launch together. The clammy feel of still-wet snowsuits and an overabundance of coats, the position of the rolling TV cart just inside the door, on the right side of the chalkboard. The whispers of excited children alternately swaying in a perpetual dance with the shushes of the adults. We’d all been prepped ahead of time and the whole school was rallying behind this “historic first” for the space program: a teacher was going to get to go to space! Our hearts and hopes soared with Christa McAuliffe and the other astronauts—but mostly for Christa, the teacher turned astronaut—for those first 72 seconds. And then I just remember quiet. The most sudden shut-off of all the sounds in the world, the deepest and most profound silence I’d yet heard in my life. The quiet of a room full of adults who suddenly have no idea what they’re supposed to be telling the children in their charge. A blip on the TV, a moment of smoke on the screen, and suddenly the world was forever changed. There were no words at hand for the adults in the room that day. I’m sure soothing platitudes were attempted, but on lifeless wings those vague reassurances fell so short that mostly nothing was said at all. The narrative was different now, and the language needed to adapt to this new narrative lagged behind. Hands were held, tears wiped, and hugs exchanged, but no one had words ready just yet. The whole rest of the day was blanketed in a silence as bracing as the cold outside. There have certainly been other earth-shattering events I’ve witnessed from afar, but this one stands out as the first moment I personally witnessed a