The View On Final Approach
When I used to live with my grandparents in a housing subdivision a mile east of LaSalle, Illinois, I sometimes noticed planes flying overhead, beginning their final descent to Chicago Midway International Airport, about seventy miles to the northeast. They flew low enough that, if the light was right, I could make out the markings on the side of the aircraft. I would stop and watch them for a moment, wondering where they had come from, who was on board, and where they were headed next. At the time, I never imagined that one day I would be on one of those planes, looking down. On June 7, 1989, after having spent a week with my mother in Irving, I was flying out of Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport, bound for Midway, where I would be taking a connecting flight to Los Angeles. The next day, I would be on another plane—this one headed across the Pacific to Japan. It felt like the beginning of something, though I didn’t yet know exactly what. Somewhere al...
