Remembering John Worra (1935-2006)

It's been a year now since the passing of my father, John "Jack" Worra in the city of Tipton, Michigan on October 10, 2006.
A pilot by trade, he was born in South Haven, Michigan. In 1953 he enlisted in the US Army, and by 1961 was working for Zantop Airlines.

From 1971 to 1973 he was flying in Southeast Asia for Royal Air Lao before going back to work again for Zantop Airlines again once he was back in the United States.

In 1988 he began flying for UPS and retired from UPS in 1997. Beyond this, what is public is public, what is private is private for any number of reasons.


Thanks to all of you who were there for me and my family during this time- it means a great deal and we have not forgotten.



Within the family there are poems I've written on the matter, but really, this year I feel compelled to turn instead towards my fellow poet, Yevgeny Yevtushenko, and his poem 'People':

No people are uninteresting.
Their fate is like the chronicle of planets.

Nothing in them is not particular,
and planet is dissimilar from planet.

And if a man lived in obscurity
making his friends in that obscurity
obscurity is not uninteresting.

To each his world is private,
and in that world one excellent minute.

And in that world one tragic minute.
These are private.

In any man who dies there dies with him
his first snow and kiss and fight.
It goes with him.

There are left books and bridges
and painted canvas and machinery.
Whose fate is to survive.

But what has gone is also not nothing:
by the rule of the game something has gone.
Not people die but worlds die in them.