RIP David L. Fielding
May 30, 1967 – December 18, 2005
I had a moment of silence at 1:15 this morning, remembering how silent the room was at Mercy Hospice in Scranton, Pennsylvania, where my husband took his final breaths. There were four of us with David when he passed — a nurse, two friends, and me. The way I remember it was more like an out-of-body experience, viewing the scene from above rather than by David’s bedside. I don’t know how long we stood there silently after his body shut down. It could have been a minute, it could have been five, time seemed to stand very still.
In exactly half a year I will turn 38 years old, and I will be the age that David was when he left this world. While most healthy people take for granted that they’ll live to a ripe old age, I’ve held the notion as an adult (long before I met David) that I would probably die young, which is why I celebrate my birthday as resolutely as I do. I have an early history of recklessness and taking risks, but after losing David I certainly don’t take anything for granted now. He was a perfectly healthy man who was taken in his prime. It could as easily have been me in the cancer ward and David the one left behind. I’ve often asked the universe, why am I still around?
In the last four years I’ve searched for meaning and purpose because I concluded that I must be around for a reason, and it’s up to me to figure out what that is. David knew very clearly what he wanted out of life, and being married to him changed me. It is the reason why I could no longer return to being called Edwin even after he died, I am a different person now. I took the name Edwin-Fielding because it fit me better.
David didn’t like to be called a pilot, he always wanted to be known as an aviator. A pilot is someone who can fly a plane, but an aviator encompasses so much more. I could understand why David preferred aviator, he was a walking encyclopedia of aviation history. He could identify old airplanes overhead and tell you stories about them. He was passionate about the golden age of flight, especially postal service aircraft that had no air traffic control, accurate maps, GPS, or weather forecasting. They had mail, they had destinations, they were on a mission, come-what-may. David had an abiding respect for the pioneers of aviation who chose this risky life.
If you look up aviator in Wikipedia, it says this:
The term aviator (as opposed to “pilot” or other terms) was used more in the early days of aviation, before anyone had ever seen an airplane fly, and it had connotations of bravery and adventure.
David’s ashes were scattered from an old airplane over an aerodome on his birthday in 2006 because I know the ground is no place for aviators. They belong in the sky.
We miss you, AviatorDave. Clear skies.
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