After Flight 427: Discovering my dad

One hour into my post-Labor Day workweek, I searched inside my impractically large purse for my wallet, blindly feeling through the cavernous bag for a few moments only to confirm that the wallet was missing.

This was nothing new. While I have a creditable memory for names, birthdays, even a handful of long-dormant Latin conjugations, I am not always so adept at maintaining my belongings.

To find the lost item, I engage in a process that now is a familiar routine: I probe my memory and retrace my steps. I have become a skilled investigator of my own mind, an asset that often helps me locate my parked car in the seemingly identical streets of Shadyside and facilitates the recounting of cherished moments from my past, like the surprise appearance of my first dog, Daisy, under the Christmas tree.

It is not unusual for me to spend hours with family and friends uncovering fading memories, sharing stories that usually inspire laughter (mostly mine at my own jokes, a family trait) and occasionally tears. Recalling memories about my father, Curtis Young, sometimes induces both.

When my father died on USAir Flight 427 on Sept. 8, 1994, I was 2½ years old — too young to understand the event, too young to recognize his absence and too young to have stored any valuable memories of my dad.

Like many others who lost loved ones in the Flight 427 disaster, I have spent the better part of the past two decades animating my dad with thousands of treasured memories. But unlike with most enjoyable occasions to reminiscence, I have nothing to contribute.

While I have always joyfully received from others heartfelt and often hilarious stories about my dad, I have not been wholly satisfied with remembering him vicariously through them. Eager to discover any memory of my dad to call my own — however mundane or deeply hidden — I started the long process of retracing the steps of our short time together.

I turned to Oakmont, Pa., the small town in which my dad was born, went to school and married my mom, Lory (also a longtime resident of Oakmont). Growing up in the same house that my parents bought in 1987, just a few minutes' walk from my dad's parents' home, where he had spent much of his life, I was surrounded by vast archives of potential memories. I relied on the power of these places to evoke any recollections.

Though they offered no key to unlock memories of my dad, the innumerable photographs and videos of him shaped his image in my mind. I was not able to remember him on my own, but throughout my childhood I would occasionally encounter his face and voice, especially his laugh. Walking by his gravestone in the cemetery just blocks from my house was a surprising comfort, for in spite of my frustration, I welcomed continuous reminders of him in my daily life.

The prompts subdued an alarming question: How do you keep yourself from forgetting someone you cannot remember?

This concern culminated in 2010 when I moved to Charlottesville, Va., to start my first year of college. I worried that outside the realm of the familiar, my house, Oakmont, Pittsburgh, my dad's memory, or what I forged as his memory, would slip away. I had long sought solace in the places that tied me to my dad's life; how would I sustain his “memory” more than 300 miles from home?

My years in Virginia were wonderful. But I felt that I had interrupted my retracing of steps, stalling my efforts with a prolonged detour.

Then, several months ago, in my senior year of college, I was browsing Netflix when I stumbled upon the baseball film “Angels in the Outfield.” Something clicked.

I remembered sitting in my dad's lap, watching that movie play on the JumboTron in Three Rivers Stadium. After 20 years, I had finally unearthed a moment in my life that I am certain I shared with my dad. I was thrilled, certainly, but not quite as content with my discovery as I expected to be. Was it because my “retracing” was not what was ultimately successful at producing this memory? Was it that the “place” that inspired this memory — Three Rivers Stadium — has been gone almost as long as my dad? Or, and not for the first time, had I placed myself inside this memory after hearing about it from my mom? I am still uncertain.

The truth is, though I cherish my singular remembrance, it is stagnant and vague while the memories shared by family and friends of my dad have created a profoundly meaningful and enduring legacy that continuously grows. For the last 20 years, Oakmont and the community within it have done an incredible job of helping me know the man as they did. Through them, I know my dad as “Curt,” the impossibly kind, jovial friend and neighbor who would give a stranger the shirt off his back.

My grandparents, Rita and John, who will soon celebrate their 60th wedding anniversary, and my dad's brother, John Paul, and his family remain committed to maintaining my dad's vibrant presence in our lives. When his memory feels distant, I need only look to my sister Caitlin's generous spirit or my brother TC's passion for adventure and love for meeting new people. It also helps that TC is the spitting image of our dad.

My mom, having dated my dad since high school, has some of the very best stories. She strengthened my family despite her grief and, most importantly, never let us forget how proud he was to be our dad.

With these living beacons of my dad's life, I am never truly at a loss for memory. And I no longer have to retrace my steps to find him. I hope that I can continue to collect these memories and perpetuate my dad's remarkable legacy for the rest of my life.

As we commemorate the 20th anniversary of our father's passing and the Flight 427 Air Disaster Support League gathers together again, I finally feel like I am able to share his legacy with others despite not remembering. It is important that those who can remember continue to share their stories so that the memory of Dad and 131 other beloved family members and friends who died that day will never be forgotten. People like me depend on it.

To my family, especially my stepdad, Bill, my younger siblings Anneliese and Jude, and my dear friends, thank you for allowing me to share my dad's memory with you all and brightening my life in his absence.

To those who volunteered to help in the aftermath of Flight 427, your courage and selfless commitment to the families who lost loved ones never will be forgotten. Thank you.

And for those who were wondering, I found my wallet in the garbage can.

Blythe Young works in higher education and lives in Shadyside. She will visit the crash site for the first time on Monday.