As I sit to write this article I am acutely aware that this will appear on the newsstands on or about Jan 15. It is hard to fathom what has happened to my family in this past year. On January 11th I was like a lot of other people in the country, our family was uncertain about the economy and how it was going to affect us. We had a commercial property that had been vacant for several months and we were worried. So on that Sunday afternoon Sully and I took to the hills that we love so much, to hike that evening. It was a beautiful evening with clear skies and a slight breeze. As we stood on that hill looking out over the beautiful valley, Sully turned to me and said, “looking out there makes you feel like anything is possible doesn’t it?” We returned home and he left early the next morning on his trip as usual.
On the afternoon of January 15 I had gone to Starbucks for my usual cup of tea. I had stopped at Ann Taylor in the Blackhawk shopping center and gone home to an important conference call. I had been working with a producer in Los Angeles and we had a pitch meeting that afternoon with Oprah Winfrey’s new network, OWN. We were on the phone when Sully started calling home. His first call was on my cell which I promptly ignored as I was busy! He proceeded to call our phone lines back and forth which I ignored until about the fourth call. I told Dan, Sully was going crazy on the phone and maybe I should take the call. “Oh sure” he said, go ahead and call me back.
As I had expected Sully home that night and we knew it was a close connection and the weather was bad I was expecting to hear from him. His first words were… “I just wanted to let you know I am ok.” I thought that meant he was going to make it home that night. Ok, I said ready to get back to my important phone call. He then said there has been an incident. Ok again, I thought, that meant he was not going to make it home. Clearly I was not getting it and he asked me if I was watching TV …and as I turned it on he said we hit a flock of birds and I had to ditch the airplane in the river—“I am ok but I have to go now.”
Wow… how do you absorb that kind of news? My body started to shake violently as I sat on the chair uncertain what to do next. I called my long time best friend and told her what had happened and said what do I do now? She said go get the girls and so I did. When the three of us got home we turned on the TV and sat in silence as our world as we knew it started to shift.
We don’t know exactly how the media got a hold of Sully’s name: but the first media call that came into our house was from the New York Times on my daughter’s cell about 45 minutes after we got home. And once that happened all whats-it broke loose. Shortly after that the first reporter from CNN (and might I add the best looking of the bunch) showed up on my porch. Followed closely by two friends who slipped past the “Mr. Good Looking” reporter at the door to help answer the phones. By that time both our land lines our fax and cell phones were all going off simultaneously. It is funny, the little things that stand out in my memory. Like later that night one of the girls wanted to go to her dance class as usual; the place was crazy and she needed to get out of the house. On her way back the mom that was driving stopped at Costco and bought us some premade pasta and salad. I remember thinking… how odd; you take food when someone has died. And thank God no one has died. Little did I know that with the crushing media we were going to be house bound for several days and that was all we had to eat!
That night I lay awake in my bed listening to the hum of the generators of the big new satellite trucks in our court. With the occasional phone call from a news outlet from the other side of the world. Sully called later that night and said I think this will change our lives forever – but I don’t think we knew what that meant exactly at that moment. Funny enough I do remember calling some of my personal training clients the next day and telling them I did not think I was going to be able to meet with them for a while.
By the next morning we were answering the phone to Katie Couric, Diane Sawyer and Matt Lauer. We had some light moments, like when I was on the phone with the Jay Leno people and my older daughter Kate came into the room with her phone. I hushed her with my finger and told her who I was on the phone with. With her hip cocked out to the side and her finger pointing to the phone she said, “Yeah, I’ll have Matt Lauer!” Ok you win.
Because of the media work I have done for ABC-7 I had some media connections and so I made phone calls the next day to try to get us some help. Alex and Libby arrived by Friday night and were fielding over 250 calls and requests a day that went on for months.
In the last 8 month’s we attended countless black tie events from the Inauguration and Presidential Neighborhood Ball to the Emmy’s.
So what do I make of all of this? As I have said in several articles, there is power in a worldwide feel good moment. Sully, and to some degree our family,are the public face of that good news –that feel good moment. And now I am left trying to reconcile our old life with our new life. And what I have come to is this.
As you may know I AM a passionate advocate for women’s wellness and the power of exercise. I had owned a women’s gym and was continuing my career in television. Over the years owning the gym and talking with women about their fitness I had heard every excuse in the book. They were going to get in shape: for their son’s wedding, their daughter’s wedding, a class reunion, family reunion… And I don’t have time to work out, because the kids are out of school… because the kids are in school… because of work… because I am out of work…you name it they were waiting. Well I am here to tell you to stop waiting.
On January 15th thank God my roots were touched up and I was not waiting to lose that last 10 pounds, I was ready. My belief in the power of exercise and my self improvement quest made me ready when my moment came. We all know Sully was ready. He had spent a lifetime readying himself; reading and studying being ready on all fronts. Little did I realize, my media training and contacts were going to serve us well that day. As Sully was looking to his career beyond flying in the future he had recently completed his Safety website and just launched it a couple of months before. Like the pinnacle of a mountain top all of our collective life preparedness came into use on that day and the months to follow.
So my question to you… Are you ready? If your career is slowing with the economy, ready yourself for the next big opportunity. Don’t wait to focus on your personal fitness; your big moment could be just this afternoon. If you are a mother, your family’s health depends on your health. And if you are single…what if the man of your dreams is in the produce aisle of Safeway tonight.
None of know what tomorrow will bring…be it good news or bad. Are you ready?