Running helps ease mother’s loss of son
Published 10:32 pm Saturday, April 19, 2008
When Louise Smith was 8, her school had a 100-mile club. She ran a mile a day. Mile after mile, on into adulthood, she ran for pleasure, clarity and solitude.
Running brought calm to the busy mother’s life as she and her husband, Gary, raised a daughter and twin sons.
“When kids are babies, running gives you your own time,” said Smith, 47, of Lake Stevens.
She won 10-kilometer races and ran half-marathons. Last year, she ran her first marathon. She finished Oregon’s Portland Marathon in 3:49. That was Oct. 7, 2007.
It wasn’t until the next day that Smith learned of her family’s staggering loss. Her 20-year-old son, Andrew Smith, was one of 10 people killed Oct. 7 when a plane carrying skydivers back from an Idaho outing crashed in the White Pass area of the Cascade Range.
Now on her runs, Smith keeps company with Andy through cherished memories.
“He was so happy. He was going to see his girlfriend,” Smith said of her son’s Idaho skydiving trip. “He was always doing stuff. He tinkered with projects in the garage. He was making a motorized scooter for his brother. With skydiving, he liked that adrenaline.”
His favorite place, she said, was Deep Lake in Eastern Washington. “He’d dive off the cliffs.”
A wrestler and cross-country team captain at Lake Stevens High School, Andy Smith and his brother Alex teased their mom about trying a marathon. Last Mother’s Day, Andy drew a picture on the card he gave his mom — a stick person running.
It was Smith’s 23-year-old daughter, Lorraine, who coaxed her into running the Portland Marathon. Smith said Andy was proud she’d be taking the 26-mile challenge.
Monday morning, she’ll lace up her running shoes in Boston. With the qualifying time earned in Portland the day her son died, Smith will join about 25,000 other runners in the 112th Boston Marathon.
Pinned to her singlet will be a photo of Andy, her charming, smiling son. “I am running it for him,” she said.
She’ll run the famous footrace with 62-year-old Ila Brandli, a friend from Mesa, Ariz. Brandli ran in Portland, too. The week after the plane crash, Smith said Brandli went skydiving, wearing her Portland Marathon shirt.
In the half-year since the Smiths and nine other families lost loved ones in the crash, Louise Smith has found ways to honor her son. “I have a little picture of him and I turn a light on beside it. I say ‘Good morning’ and ‘Good night,’ ” she said.
She’s had experiences she can’t explain, which have planted the seeds of a growing faith.
At the Portland hotel where she stayed Oct. 7, Smith said she was awakened late that night by someone singing in a beautiful, operatic voice. “It was in a room above me. I thought about Andy, but I didn’t find out until I got home,” she said.
On their sons’ birthday, Nov. 24, the family went to a Seattle comedy club, a favorite place of Andy’s. “Alex was involved in a skit. They asked people in the audience to name a crazy activity. Somebody called out ‘skydiving.’
“We just keep saying that coincidences are God’s way of remaining anonymous,” Smith said. “I didn’t have a lot of faith before. I have way more now.”
As they treasure memories, the Smiths are also involved in legal action. Along with families of eight other skydivers killed in the crash, they have filed a suit against Cessna Aircraft Co. and Goodrich Corp. The separate lawsuits, filed in U.S. District Court in Seattle, claim the aircraft-maker knew its Caravan 208 performed poorly in icy conditions. The suits seek punitive damages and other damages.
“Our commitment to the families is this: When we’re through with this case, this Cessna 208B will no longer be certified to fly into icing conditions,” Dean Brett, the Bellingham lawyer who filed the federal lawsuits, told The Herald in February.
The other crash victims were pilot Phil Kibler, 47, of Snohomish; Cecil Elsner, 20, of Lake Stevens; Landon Atkin, 20, of Snohomish; Bryan Jones, 34, of Redmond; Jeff Ross, 28, of Snohomish; Hollie Rasberry, 24, of Bellingham; Michelle Barker, 22, of Kirkland; Casey Craig, 30, of Bothell; and Ralph Abdo, 27, of Issaquah.
“We’re not expecting anything anytime soon, but we’re on the bandwagon,” Louise Smith said of the lawsuits Wednesday. “We want the plane decertified. That’s our goal.”
Even for a lifelong runner, it was painful to take her first strides after losing her beloved son.
“It happened that day, the day of my first marathon. I thought maybe I shouldn’t run anymore,” Smith said. “That didn’t last long. Running has gotten me through a lot.”
Columnist Julie Muhlstein: 425-339-3460 or muhlstein@heraldnet.com.
