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American Morning

High Calling

Aired January 13, 2004 - 08:34   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: It's been nearly one year since America lost the space shuttle Columbia and its crew of seven. Two weeks after the Columbia's launch on February 1st, 2003, it broke apart on re-entry. For the widow of the shuttle commander Rick Husband, the year, she says, has felt more like a lifetime. Now Evelyn Husband is sharing her memories of Rick and the ill-fated mission in a new book. It's called "High Calling: The Courageous Life and Faith of Space Shuttle Columbia Commander Rick Husband."
Evelyn Husband joins us this morning.

It's nice to have you. Thanks for coming in. It must be so difficult to put down on paper your life and the person that you love more than anything. How was the process for you? Did it feel at the end liberating in some way, or did it just feel so difficult each and every day?

EVELYN HUSBAND, AUTHOR, "HIGH CALLING": I thought it was very difficult, because What I did is I wrote the book in a short amount of time. So as I remembered every portion of our time that we knew each other, I just grieved very openly of all the different facets of knowing Rick and how much I've lost. But it was also a discovery of God's faithfulness in our life from the beginning of our marriage and how much we changed through the process. So it was very eliminating for me personally.

O'BRIEN: You dedicate the book to your two children. You've got a little girl named Laura who is 13, and a son, Matthew, who is just 8 years old. First, how are they doing? Because I know, as one of the numerous reporters who covered this story when it happened, the first thing you think of is, oh, God, the families of these folks who were on the shuttle. How are your kids doing?

HUSBAND: They're doing well. You know, there is still a lot of grieving left to be done. I keep hoping we're going to be at the end of this at some point, and I think it's going to take a lifetime. But we're very strong as a family. We're very involved in church, and they to a private Christian school that's very nurturing for them, and that's been very helpful, and they're surrounded by terrific friends that have been real supporting.

O'BRIEN: What was the point of writing the book? What did you want your kids to know about your husband? What did you want your readers to know?

HUSBAND: I had so many people that told me I should journal everything and write it down, and I'm a horrible journaler, I just can't do it. So I needed the discipline of something like this to accurately write down for Laura and Matthew. And I hope even know, it will be such a treasure to them as years go by of who their dad was.

O'BRIEN: Tell me about him. Who was he?

HUSBAND: He was a wonderful man that I adored, who I met when I was 18 years old, and now I'm 45. So I grew up with Rick. We dated all through college, and like I said, I just watched how he transformed through the years and became the hero that everybody knows publicly, but I had known all along privately. And he was just a tremendous husband and father, just a wonderful man.

O'BRIEN: You write a lot about your faith. A very big portion of the book is about your Christian faith. So how do you keep that faith when truly I think the worst thing you could ever possibly imagine happens on a national scope in front of the world. How do you say, I'm still on this path, I believe in a benign God who is there to help?

HUSBAND: He's not benign, for starters. He has been so active in my life, and I would say my faith has just exploded this year. I've been a Christian since I was 13 years old, but it's never been put to the test like what you talked about until this year. And I think your response to something this massive is either going to be running toward God or away. But he has proven so faithful through his (UNINTELLIGIBLE).

O'BRIEN: Tell me, when you hear President Bush talking about manned mission to Mars -- and I don't know if this is something you follow closely or care about or not -- but do you think, wow, boy, that's something Rick would have wanted to go on?

HUSBAND: Absolutely he would have. That's in every child's imagination when they want to grow up and be an vaunt to be able to do something like that, and Rick would have thought it was incredibly cool. So I think he'd be very excited about it. And one of the neat things is this landing on Mars, they had a crew patch that is on Mars, so the crew's name is now on Mars as well, and I thought that was really exciting.

O'BRIEN: What will you do to honor your husband's memory on the one-year anniversary, which is jut a few weeks away.

HUSBAND: One thing I've done with grieving, you can run away from it or just go in the face of it, and that's what I've chosen to do. So I'm speaking at my church on February 1st, along with Sandy Anderson.

O'BRIEN: It's nice to have, and the book is called "High Calling." It's a wonderful book. I've had a chance to read a lot of it last night.

HUSBAND: Thank you.

O'BRIEN: Thanks for coming in.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com







Aired January 13, 2004 - 08:34   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: It's been nearly one year since America lost the space shuttle Columbia and its crew of seven. Two weeks after the Columbia's launch on February 1st, 2003, it broke apart on re-entry. For the widow of the shuttle commander Rick Husband, the year, she says, has felt more like a lifetime. Now Evelyn Husband is sharing her memories of Rick and the ill-fated mission in a new book. It's called "High Calling: The Courageous Life and Faith of Space Shuttle Columbia Commander Rick Husband."
Evelyn Husband joins us this morning.

It's nice to have you. Thanks for coming in. It must be so difficult to put down on paper your life and the person that you love more than anything. How was the process for you? Did it feel at the end liberating in some way, or did it just feel so difficult each and every day?

EVELYN HUSBAND, AUTHOR, "HIGH CALLING": I thought it was very difficult, because What I did is I wrote the book in a short amount of time. So as I remembered every portion of our time that we knew each other, I just grieved very openly of all the different facets of knowing Rick and how much I've lost. But it was also a discovery of God's faithfulness in our life from the beginning of our marriage and how much we changed through the process. So it was very eliminating for me personally.

O'BRIEN: You dedicate the book to your two children. You've got a little girl named Laura who is 13, and a son, Matthew, who is just 8 years old. First, how are they doing? Because I know, as one of the numerous reporters who covered this story when it happened, the first thing you think of is, oh, God, the families of these folks who were on the shuttle. How are your kids doing?

HUSBAND: They're doing well. You know, there is still a lot of grieving left to be done. I keep hoping we're going to be at the end of this at some point, and I think it's going to take a lifetime. But we're very strong as a family. We're very involved in church, and they to a private Christian school that's very nurturing for them, and that's been very helpful, and they're surrounded by terrific friends that have been real supporting.

O'BRIEN: What was the point of writing the book? What did you want your kids to know about your husband? What did you want your readers to know?

HUSBAND: I had so many people that told me I should journal everything and write it down, and I'm a horrible journaler, I just can't do it. So I needed the discipline of something like this to accurately write down for Laura and Matthew. And I hope even know, it will be such a treasure to them as years go by of who their dad was.

O'BRIEN: Tell me about him. Who was he?

HUSBAND: He was a wonderful man that I adored, who I met when I was 18 years old, and now I'm 45. So I grew up with Rick. We dated all through college, and like I said, I just watched how he transformed through the years and became the hero that everybody knows publicly, but I had known all along privately. And he was just a tremendous husband and father, just a wonderful man.

O'BRIEN: You write a lot about your faith. A very big portion of the book is about your Christian faith. So how do you keep that faith when truly I think the worst thing you could ever possibly imagine happens on a national scope in front of the world. How do you say, I'm still on this path, I believe in a benign God who is there to help?

HUSBAND: He's not benign, for starters. He has been so active in my life, and I would say my faith has just exploded this year. I've been a Christian since I was 13 years old, but it's never been put to the test like what you talked about until this year. And I think your response to something this massive is either going to be running toward God or away. But he has proven so faithful through his (UNINTELLIGIBLE).

O'BRIEN: Tell me, when you hear President Bush talking about manned mission to Mars -- and I don't know if this is something you follow closely or care about or not -- but do you think, wow, boy, that's something Rick would have wanted to go on?

HUSBAND: Absolutely he would have. That's in every child's imagination when they want to grow up and be an vaunt to be able to do something like that, and Rick would have thought it was incredibly cool. So I think he'd be very excited about it. And one of the neat things is this landing on Mars, they had a crew patch that is on Mars, so the crew's name is now on Mars as well, and I thought that was really exciting.

O'BRIEN: What will you do to honor your husband's memory on the one-year anniversary, which is jut a few weeks away.

HUSBAND: One thing I've done with grieving, you can run away from it or just go in the face of it, and that's what I've chosen to do. So I'm speaking at my church on February 1st, along with Sandy Anderson.

O'BRIEN: It's nice to have, and the book is called "High Calling." It's a wonderful book. I've had a chance to read a lot of it last night.

HUSBAND: Thank you.

O'BRIEN: Thanks for coming in.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com