  We made it! I think all the bad love I got from the universe this last week was just one big punctuation mark on the year that ran Feb. 1, 2003-Feb 1, 2004. Now that it's past, I feel as if the last year has been one long dream, the kind where you run and run and never get there.
The Space Shuttle Columbia's memorials yesterday were really touching. I cried during the one CBS ran mid-afternoon, in which they interviewed the families that came to Houston for the game (I really wished they'd tried to get at least a statement from the others). The families were invited to the Super Bowl as the personal guests of NFL Commissioner Tagliboo. Up until yesterday, I'd been a little bitter that the Super Bowl would overshadow any events here in Houston memorializing the tragedy, but yesterday I realized the Super Bowl brought the event to the attention of every Super Bowl fan in the country, where before just Houstonians would have taken notice.
When Columbia launched, I was still pregnant with Eleanor. I watched tensely at home with my parents and John watched from NASA-JSC. We were all so relieved that this high profile supposed terrorist threat (due to Ilan's Israeli nationality) went off without a hitch. A few years ago, we all would have watched the launch together from JSC's Teague Auditorium. Before 9/11, families were always invited to launch events, we all celebrated together the achievement our collective hard work and sacrifices accomplished.
On that terrible Saturday a year ago, I was sleeping in with my newborn daughter in my arms, and John was on the computer enjoying his morning reading. My parents had returned home, we were adjusting to our newly normal life as a family of four. Our neighbor Ron came to the door to tell John something was wrong with the space shuttle, and John ran in (the TV was in the bedroom, we were in recovery mode still) to turn on CNN.
All he said was "the shuttle's off radar. " I remember sitting up in bed and watching the first terrible shots of the falling debris and feeling my heart chill. My mind buzzed with the new knowledge that our lives would forever be changed by the sights I took in. I tried to imagine what the families were doing at that moment, we knew they would be immediately escorted from the bleachers to a preselected private location. Astronauts, also preselected, would be comforting them and explaining the technical scenarios underway. When I used to watch the launches in Teague, I learned quickly not to clap at liftoff. Everyone there is intimately familiar with the levels of risk at each stage of flight, and the highest risk doesn't drop until the twin boosters separate from the shuttle many seconds in. Everyone in the crowd, mindful of the one time the shuttle didn't clear that risky stage, holds their breath and wills the ship upward.
Finally, a release! of boosters and breath, cheers erupt and the capcom wishes the crew a safe flight. From that moment on, I know the families weren't totally relaxed--how could they be until they embraced their loved ones again--but I think they let their guards down. What a cruel irony then, that the moments when they felt relief creeping in their hearts, waiting only for the final sonic boom to forshadow the shuttle's return, were the moments in which their loved ones died. 
