Homecoming

This is the ninth post in a series about my experience in the immediate aftermath of the Flight 5342 tragedy (part one: The Night It Happened). Revisiting this period is helpful to me, but reading about it may not be helpful to you. Feel free to skip this one if you might find it upsetting.

The confirmation that Christine and Spencer had been recovered allowed me to exhale. But it also brought a new weight with it. It was the mirror image of the decision I had faced the night the collision happened: stay in D.C. as long as necessary to accompany Christine and Spencer home or return to Milo as soon as I could.

Given the circumstances, Milo was faring well at home under the care of my parents. Christine’s sister, Kathleen, also made the drive from upstate New York to Rhode Island to be with him while I was in D.C. My neighbors rallied around him, bringing food, inviting him over for playdates, and arranging outings like basketball at the YMCA and a gaming gathering at a local business where Milo had been taking video game development classes.

But after discussing it with my sister, Amanda, we decided that it was time to go home. We had done everything we could for Christine and Spencer at that point. We were exhausted and emotionally numb. We both had kids at home who needed us. And we had developed enough trust in the team from the medical examiner’s office and our American Airlines CARE Team contacts to believe that Christine and Spencer would be cared for on the way home.

Amanda and I attended the last NTSB briefing that would be held at the Family Assistance Center in Bethesda, but needed to slip out a little before the end to make our train.

We spent the long train ride home trying to process what we had just gone through and catching up on life. The return to familiar administrative tasks like email, online banking, and invoicing clients — without the adrenaline kick I was getting in Bethesda — brought the realization that my brain was still impaired. Every task, including simple things I had been doing for decades, was difficult. Often, I couldn’t complete them at all and had to move on to something else.

This was scary. It felt like I had brain damage, and I was afraid that I would never be able to function like myself again.

On the train, I received an email from the NTSB with a letter that had been shared at the briefing after we left. It was from a woman named Cindy, who had lost a daughter the same age as Spencer in the TWA Flight 800 tragedy.

Along with her condolences, she shared her experience of the months and years that followed her loss. The brain fog. The unexplainable behavior. How having a younger surviving child forced her to push ahead while others without that responsibility could just retreat. The roller coaster of “firsts” that would come over the year to follow.

It was a blueprint for understanding what I was going through — and what still lay ahead — that arrived at the exact moment I needed it.

Reading Cindy’s letter helped me realize that while the grief would be permanent, the severe mental incapacitation I was feeling likely was not.

She wrote:

Many of us from town felt the ‘fog’ lifting around the 4th year. Don’t panic. Our lives went on before that. We didn’t even realize the state we were in, until we started to find our new normal. It’s at that point you realize how well you managed. There will always be a life before and a life after, and the two will always be different. It doesn’t mean that life after tragedy isn’t good, it has simply changed.

Late morning on February 11, 2025, I met Amanda and Christine’s close friend, Erica, at Rhode Island T.F. Green International Airport, where Christine and Spencer’s journey began. We were escorted through security to the gate area.

After a short wait, we were led to a door next to a jet bridge and walked down a set of stairs to the tarmac. Before long, a Southwest flight from Washington taxied in our direction and pulled up to the gate.

The ground crews from all of the surrounding gates — which served several different airlines — stopped what they were doing, walked over, and formed two lines on either side of the belt loader that pulled up to the cargo door.

Two hearses appeared on the tarmac and drove toward the plane.

One at a time, Christine and Spencer were lifted gently into the waiting hearses. The hearses then drove off slowly for the final leg of their journey home.

After re-entering the terminal, we were met by Tom and Tracy from the American Airlines CARE Team, who had accompanied Christine and Spencer on the flight.

The morning after Christine and Spencer arrived in Rhode Island, I made the short drive to W. Raymond Watson Funeral Home in Riverside, R.I. I had visited several times during the preceding week, but at this early hour it was quiet. I walked to the owner’s office, and he led me to one of the rooms where wakes are typically held and told me to take as much time as I needed.

I walked toward the two caskets in the front of the room and was reunited with Christine and Spencer.

I began speaking quietly to them. I told them how unfair it was that this happened to them. I told Christine how much I loved her and how proud I was of everything we had accomplished together through both good and challenging times. I promised to do my best to guide Milo through this difficult period and whatever else life threw at him. I told her I would keep showing people what a uniquely talented and creative person she was.

I told Spencer how proud I was of the person he had become, and how sad I was that I would not get to see the rest of the amazing journey he was on. I told him about the ways he had changed me for the better by challenging me and pushing me out of my comfort zone. I told him that I would be there for his friends who were hurting and encourage them to find their own way toward happiness. I told him that he had already inspired so many other people with what he had done in such a short time, and that I would keep telling his story so he could keep inspiring people.

Later that day, Christine and Spencer were cremated at Swan Point Cemetery in Providence, R.I.

If you found this interesting or moving, consider making a donation to the Christine Conrad Lane Memorial Dog Park.