87. Not His Final Destination
Many years ago, my parents had separated and my father was planning on taking a trip across the country to California. He was pretty excited about it. I talked to him the day before he left, wished him well, and told him I’d talk to him after he got to California. On the day of his trip, he called me and told me he decided at the last minute not to go.
He refused to really get into why. Just said he changed his mind. Seemed really odd for something that he had been planning for a couple of months—until I made a chilling realization later that night. I was sitting at my girlfriend’s house and we’re watching the news, and they reported that US Air Flight 1493—the flight my dad was supposed to be on—collided with another aircraft while landing in Los Angeles.
About 25% of the people on the flight were lost. It’s hard to know how my Dad would have made out, because it really depended on where you were sitting—front vs. back of the plane. It was several months before he finally made a disturbing confession. He told me that night before he was supposed to leave, he had an extremely vivid dream that he was in a fiery plane crash. So vivid that it scared him out of flying that day.
My dad is a Marine Corps Vietnam veteran who saw combat. I can only imagine how vivid the dream must have been to scare him out of getting on that plane that morning.