An Open Letter to Hangar No. 13

Author’s Note: This letter is a tribute to my grandfather and our time spent building planes in Hangar No. 13. After his passing from cancer, I couldn’t bring myself to return, but when I finally did, the hangar helped me breathe again. It has been a place of healing, where memories and grief could coexist, allowing me to reconnect with both him and myself. This letter is my way of thanking it for giving me the space to remember and to heal.

Dear Hangar No. 13,

You used to breathe like something alive, if you recall.
Not in the way that buildings creak and settle, but in the way the chest expands before speaking. A ribcage, you were, of corrugated steel and reverence. And inside of you were real, working lungs. Lungs that pulled in prairie wind and sawdust which swept through your proud open doors and hushed out the hum of the propellers and warmth from the pilot seat he used to sit in (courtesy of his chronic IBS).
Those funny little two-seater planes he built made him think he could just…fly right out of you and carry himself away with all your air in his lungs. He was full of you and you were full of him. He built those planes not because he knew how flight worked but because he believed in flight. He believed in you. Or, rather, the power of you and the freedom you offered. Faith in motion, he’d say.
When he stopped breathing, so too, did you. You sealed off your lungs as though the right to inhale died with him. And instead you filled yourself with the kind of dust that settles to stay. Thick, patient, watchful dust that cloaked the wings of the planes and settled in the rafters. You just let it hang there.
And I’m sorry for leaving you alone.
I told myself I couldn’t bear to see you like that—hollow, quiet, empty of laughter and stubborn radio static and the sharp sound of socket wrenches biting down. But maybe the truth is I couldn’t face the version of me that still existed in your bones. The girl in lopsided pigtails who sat on the concrete floor cross-legged, passing him tools with greasy fingers. The one who knew how to read the look in his eyes when something wasn’t quite balanced in the engine, or when he was holding back tears because those birds could finally fly.
He was my life and I was his. We were our stories.
But time flew anyway and took you with it. We both felt it. We both sagged under the weight of missing him.
And it wasn’t until I showed up with that broom that the ghosts in the corners flared themselves and began to dance.
Maybe that’s what caught me off guard—the way we startled each other back into breath. I hadn’t expected the rush of stagnant spirit to flood me so suddenly, like a wave breaking over the edge of a dam.
And suddenly everything inside you seemed to breathe with me—like it had been waiting, just as I had, for the moment when we could begin again. You breathed me open. You gave me back the space to feel what it meant to breathe again. To feel it in my whole body, not just in the small, tight way I had been moving through the world for so long. You didn’t change me—not yet—but rather you started to. You started to remind me that I still knew how to live inside my own skin, how to fill my chest with life in the way the sky fills a plane’s wings. How to expand and stretch into the air.
We’re built for flight, you and I. And the ghosts of our past are getting hungry for their mini-pretzels and peanuts.

Yours,

Dear Grandmother Collective.org
It is somewhat serendipitous that I found you. I had finally made my decision. It was time to transition from 20 years as a nurse entrepreneur and identify as a writer and a storyteller. Just a few months away from the five-year mark as a breast cancer survivor, I am ready to be a thriver! Big changes mean big decisions. What personal and professional resources and skills could I call up to move into this new and exciting future? Besides being a septuagenarian and a nurse, I was also a mother, grandmother and a great grandmother. Surely those experiences would be valuable resources. I would need to learn the craft of storytelling and creative writing. I would be free to explore new genres, like STEM fiction for young adults, historical fiction, and share legacy stories that have accumulated over my life and career.
I felt like I hit the jackpot when I discovered the Grandmother Collective website and learned about the changing image of grandmothers.
I never knew my grandmothers. One died in childbirth with her fourth child and the other died of complications of a stroke before I was born. Today improved healthcare has extended life spans and allowed our elder years to be more vibrant and productive. At the same time grandmothers have stepped up to provide childcare so their daughters could take jobs to supplement the family income or pursue their life mission. After the grandchildren are grown, many grandmothers like me still have more future to fill. They go back to college, pursue another career opportunity and revive abandoned pastimes.
It was refreshing to learn that grandmothers are now being recognized as a valuable resource to communities. In times of stress or instability grandmothers draw on their life experience and add perspective to problem-solving. They provide cultural continuity, advice and spiritual guidance.
Through my work in 7 countries on 5 continents, I learned that grandmothers can be a powerful force for building community, addressing societal challenges and advocating for the environment, the education of children, and human rights. Grandmothers are the keepers of the culture, and their power is usually demonstrated through oral storytelling and writing.
Turning 75 this year, I was ready for another big change. My next chapter needed to be more than a bucket list. It would be bigger than a career change, rather a life change. I wanted to join the ranks as a changemaker.
I found relevance and encouragement through The Grandmother Collective. It is more than just a collection of grandmothers. Your mission to project a more realistic and positive image of grandmothers, is important. I like this “movement” and the people I’ve met. I feel valued for my life experience and evolved wisdom.
Not everyone in the Grandmother Collective has birthed children. Some are “aunties” or anthropologists from agencies or organizations which serve older women. We don’t share political views, religious beliefs or our grandkids’ newest sports trophies. We are serious older women who have “been around the block” a few times and have valuable lessons to share or ambitions to pursue. We celebrate our grandchildren and ambitiously look for ways to make the world a better place for them.
I joined the monthly coffee chats and quarterly visioning sessions on Zoom. It is inspiring to hear what other courageous women are doing, saying and organizing in the intercity and in other countries. Some grandmothers must get up in the wee hours to participate in the Zoom sessions. Their commitment inspires me.
I discovered there were others who were interested in writing their stories. One thing led to another and now I lead a writing group of grandmothers. We call ourselves The Wabi Sabi Writers in honor of the lifestyle that values simplicity and more than tolerates imperfection. No pressure – our writing can be perfectly imperfect and worthy of sharing with the world. I also attend the monthly Storyteller Circle where the ancient art of oral storytelling is kept alive. I am so grateful for the opportunities you provide, the connections you facilitate and the recognition of grandmothers as a dynamic force in addressing the issues of our world. I feel like we share the power to change the world in small but meaningful ways. My grandchildren and their grandchildren will surely benefit.
I also write for a neighborhood magazine. This allows me to connect with neighbors as I help them share their unique stories.
Like other modern grandmothers, I am a changemaker!
Sincerely,
Nancy Haberstich

The house where everyone is welcome
With the typical leave with your bellies full & endless laughing
Yet I’m the one always eager to leave
I cannot endure any longer
My feet, my poor feet that bleeds
From the eggshells on which I’m walking
High on the clouds where my thoughts are always roaming
I may as well be as high as the 3rd floor
Yet my room is away from all others
It’s the only way I can get peace & quiet anymore

Even my nervous system is dysregulated
The world is dark
Wanting to paint my walls black to match
My insides tainted black & blue blue & black
I’m looking on the wrong side of the fence
Yet this house is far from that white picket it seems we’ve all dreamt
With so much angst
And so much depression that surrounds
The creaks in the floor might as well make no sound
There’s crying
There’s yelling
Yet this house holds a silence that’s never escaping
With a big backyard & a pool so befitting
Or sitting in my room alone
I’m actually a poor swimmer
So to say I was drowning in chaos I do intend literally

What makes this house a home
Is it that brand new kitchen
The one where a meal is shared
Yet eating in company I feel sickened
I should be grateful
With this marble table
and shiny new appliances
With the kitchen being the soul of the home
Yet I heat up my food
& it never seems to not be cold

The basement has seen games & laughter
As has the rest of this house
For me it’s trapped in the memories thereafter
I can’t remember when I’ve last seen it empty
How odd, how opposite
What would’ve resembled the emptiness inside
Is mirrored back with the piles of clutter
Clutter here, there
Oh the trouble we get in
From it never being clean
Yet somehow items getting bought
Buying & buying

A clean home is said to give you mental clarity
For when there’s mess all around
It may be because it’s reflecting mental organization that’s not to be found
Sadly, I’ve learned to detach from this house
Here clutter, there clutter
If it was clean, I wonder would I then feel any better I wonder

I’ve gone back to this house
The one where it does not feel like home
It’s now foreign to me
Yet it’s the place I’ve grown up & known
I’ve felt myself in a trance
For a while could only see those unfortunate flashbacks
I don’t want to live here again
It seems that fun, innocent childhood I could’ve had has come to an end

Leaving the front door for the final time
I never looked back
As we get older & reminisce
We want to own our childhood home
A feeling I’m afraid I will always lack