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John and Lisa's life: Written by John's wife Lisa
February 25, 2007
John has been woven into the fabric of my life since I was
15 years old and he was 19. We met in Woodstock, Vermont in
1980. We saw each other every summer during high school and
college. Although John claimed to have loved me at first
sight (when he saw me with my horse Eddy behind B Barn at
GMHA), I wasn’t so sure… and I wasn’t ready. But John was
steady and true, as he was in everything he did. He waited.
In 1988 after a few years of world travel and some
infrequent letters to John, something brought us together
again. John claims to actually have given up on waiting for
me, shortly prior to my arrival in Woodstock that summer.
Rachel and I were living at Smoke Rise Farm in Woodstock
Vermont. I called John just to say hi, I was back in the US
and wanted to see him. I told Rachel I was meeting John
Lancaster and I’d be back later as surely I wouldn’t be
spending the night with him…
I called her later to say I would be spending the night with
him. We stayed in his brother Rick’s house on his family
property, Turkey Hollow Farm. That was the start of me
realizing that I wanted him forever and ever.
John has been part of everything I accomplished after the
age of about 22. He was in Vail skiing and regularly took
time off to travel the world with me, and to be by my side
as I marched through multiple graduate programs. He came to
Israel where I was living with my family at Kibbutz Yassur
and studying Hebrew in Jerusalem. He tried hard to fit in to
the Kibbutz life but for many reasons he was clear that he
could not stay. When he announced he was leaving, without a
moment’s hesitation, I said I would go with him. In my mind
I dreaded the thought of moving to Vail. Although I was a
world traveler and had friends everywhere, there was no
place on earth I would rather be than with him, even if it
was Vail, CO! We left Israel on a boat and as we watched
Haifa slowly fade out of view, I had no doubts about my
choice to stay with John.
I moved to Vail, tried to fit in there. Had some fun
teaching snowboarding and saw up close how integral he was
to Vail Ski School. But Vail was not a place I felt at home,
and John knew that. He continued to love and support me and
I left for summers and sometimes years doing foreign
language study, graduate programs in London, Boston, then in
Denver. And he knew from the moment I moved to Vail that I
would be leaving at some point. He told me he would go
anywhere and do anything to stay with me.
When I announced I was going to vet school, in Michigan no
less (because I wanted to work with the esteemed Dr. Bowker),
John made the decision to change careers. He had always
wanted to fly. He spent several months driving around the
country visiting flight schools. He didn’t want to like
Helicopter Adventures Inc (HAI) because it was in Florida,
where he did not want to live. Yet John insisted on doing
things right. He told me that although the schools in other
states might have been nicer places to live, he had to go to
the best place, and that was without a doubt, HAI. This was
his reason for choosing Vail too. Over the years in Vail he
had job offers from other ski resorts, and I often asked him
to move somewhere else so I could live in a “real” town. But
Vail was the best, and if he was a skier, that was his home.
He would leave when he was ready to be something besides a
skier. So for flight training, there was no comparison to
HAI.
After he finished the program at HAI, he looked around for
jobs. A similar pattern repeated itself. Minneapolis wasn’t
the most fun climate to live in. It did have an advantage of
being not to far from Lansing, Mi where I was at vet school.
But what really caused him to choose the job at Hummingbird
Aviation in Minnesota was his impression of the flight
school and most important, of Chris Cooper who owned the
operation. John’s respect for Chris was huge. John loved
working at Hummingbird.
It was working there that he met his friend Patrick. John
had many friends in aviation. Patrick was the one he cared
about the most.
John knew that after I graduated from vet school, my goal
was to get back to Denver. He was ready to leave Hummingbird
because he wanted to fly what Patrick had been flying!
Again, he looked at the choices of companies where he would
get to fly turbine helicopters. He chose ERA, after looking
at several options. He loved the operation there, he loved
the people, and most of all he loved the flying.
John was involved in all my work from studying for exams to
writing papers to completing graduate school. My masters
thesis, my PhD thesis, a book on horse feet, my website,
articles in farrier journals, power point research
presentations, all my client handouts and much more…. John
helped me write. Some of the things published under my name
actually have more of John’s writing (in the final versions)
than my own.
Vet school was the hardest thing I have ever experienced
until now, when I must experience the world without John by
my side. He helped me get through vet school, and he helped
me with the best part of it: my research in the Equine Foot
Lab.
I do not know how to be in the world without him, but I will
learn. Because that is what he would have wanted. It’s what
he would expect of me. He always knew I would somehow be OK
without him, and I knew this about him. It was part of the
attraction of us being together. We complemented each other
perfectly. But we knew from an early age that we each had
strong drives in life. Our love for each other, as immense
as it was, would not stop us from each following our own
path. My network of friends and family spans the globe.
Almost every one of my friends also knew John. His memory
will live on through many people.
About 12 hours after his helicopter exploded early in the
morning, I was informed by ERA that no bodies had yet been
found and the Coast Guard had called off the search. Wendy
at ERA told me the company would continue their own search
and she had full confidence they would find the bodies. I
thought it was just something they did as a gesture, like
how in medicine CPR is performed on a dead person so the
doctors can tell the family they did everything they could.
That night when I went to bed thinking John’s body might
never be found, I had a dream that the Coast Guard was
informed that since the explosion was so large, bodies could
be anywhere, and they had better expand their search to the
entire galaxy. The dream was a like an episode of X-Files:
investigators scanning the cosmos with giant searchlight
beams, Scully saying to Mulder, “There has got to be an
explanation…” It seems appropriate that John’s spirit could
be anywhere in the galaxy, as all his friends and family can
now attest when his presence makes itself known in our daily
lives. Many people have noticed throughout John’s life that
he was somehow not entirely of this earth. His
“other-worldly” qualities were apparent to everyone. In 1988
when we first lived together as a couple, I used to ask him
“where are you from?” Because I was sure he was not from
this earth.
There was a song released in 1988 that captured the ethereal
quality about him. We used to listen to this (and every
other song) together. I listen now and I cry with sadness at
the loss of his physical presence in my life. But amidst my
tears I can smile too, at the fortune of having had him in
my life for the past 26 years. John loved his life, and he
loved to spread goodness everywhere he went. John’s life
force will never go away because it remains as a guide in
the lives of everyone who knew him.
A verse from “Walk and Talk Like Angels” by Toni Childs
(Union, A&M Records, 1988)
You walk like the angels talk
Where are you from
You want to walk and talk like the angels talk
Tell me then some
With a room by the sea
And a voice in the sand
Telling me your truth
And telling me your view
In how you see the world
Spinning, spinning round
And what is love and what is death
And fears you have to put to rest
So you walk like the angels….
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