Posted on 09/10/2003 12:43:01 AM PDT by garmonbozia
Death on hijacked plane left his wife and son estranged after fight over benefits
Sandy Dahl sometimes wonders how she will survive another day, whether terrible feelings of loneliness will overwhelm her, as they always seem to do.
Two years after her husband's death aboard United Airlines Flight 93, she gropes for the life she once lived.
"I am lost," she said, tearfully. "I don't know where I belong anymore."
Fifteen miles away, Matt Dahl is in the basement of a Jefferson County home, slamming away on his black, brown and white guitar as three bandmates jam with him. The deafening whine of music is audible down the street.
As the anniversary of his father's death approaches, Matt has three things on his mind: surviving his senior year at Chatfield High School, going to the prom and playing with his band, Apollo's Intention - all teenage milestones he wishes his father could share.
"I'm enjoying my life," the 17-year-old says. "I'm doing what my dad would have wanted me to do."
They are just two of the lives that terror touched Sept. 11, 2001 - a son and a wife who themselves are torn apart.
Since Capt. Jason Dahl's hijacked Boeing 757 slammed into a rural Pennsylvania field two years ago, Matt and Sandy Dahl have spoken only a handful of times.
Their correspondence in the past year has been limited to documents filed in U.S. District Court, where Matt and his mother, Gail Gibson-
Campbell, fought Sandy over $700,000 in insurance money that both sides said they were due.
The 15-month ordeal was settled in July, but the rift between stepson and stepmother may never be repaired. When Jason Dahl died piloting his plane that Tuesday morning two years ago, so did part of the family.
The irony is biting, Sandy Dahl said.
"Jason loved all of us, and he protected all of us," she said. "This is obviously not as he would have liked things."
'Our entire family blew up'
Sandy Dahl wakes up in the darkness and, for a split second, Jason is at her side.
Then reality sets in.
"It's definitely hard to let go," Dahl, 43, said last week. "There's not one thing in my life that's the same."
Since her husband's death, Dahl has felt the overwhelming support of a nation.
She counts Melodie Homer, the wife of Flight 93 co-pilot Leroy Homer, as one of her best friends. She's met countless women whose husbands died on planes and in buildings in New York, Pennsylvania and near Washington, D.C.
Forty passengers and crew members, including Dahl and Homer, died aboard their plane, which crashed in Shanksville, Pa.
Sept. 11 and Flight 93, with all the memorials and speeches and scholarships, have consumed Sandy Dahl's life.
"Sometimes it's like she gets pulled in so many different directions, and she can't possibly meet all the requests," said Dan Hatlestad, one of Sandy Dahl's closest friends. "There's a sense that the overall events (of Sept. 11) are lost in the tragedy of the World Trade Center.
"She's trying to keep the memory alive of those people who were lost on that plane."
Dahl was pushed into the spotlight last year when she delivered a speech in Shanksville on the first anniversary of the terrorist attacks.
She moved the crowd to tears with her words.
"For all of our loved ones who perished here in Shanksville, we can depart with the gift of hope: hope for our children, hope for our future and hope for our everlasting freedom," Dahl told the crowd, which included 500 victims' family members. "Flight 93 was an extraordinary gathering of individuals. We shall grieve that they died, but we shall rejoice that they lived."
Sandy Dahl will return Thursday to Shanksville as victims' families dedicate a chapel in Flight 93's honor. Dahl will ring a bell in memory of her husband.
Though she delivers messages of hope, her husband's family has questioned her actions.
Jason Dahl's brother, Lowell, has said he was not invited to pick up his brother's remains in Pennsylvania.
Some of Dahl's closest family members, including a cousin who oversees the pilot's estate, were prevented from attending the funeral in San Jose, Calif., Dahl's hometown before he moved to Ken Caryl Ranch.
"It's like Sandy just walked away from the family," said Bill Heiderich, Jason Dahl's brother-in-law and one of his best friends. "I don't think we could ever understand why she did that."
Sandy Dahl declined to talk about her relationship with her husband's family, including Matt, but said she has "tried as hard as I could through all this."
"There has been offense taken when none was meant," she said. "It's like our entire family blew up."
Court battle
Two months after Jason Dahl's death, both Sandy Dahl and ex-wife Gail Gibson-Campbell filed claims with the Life Insurance Company of North America on more than $350,000 in death benefits.
Dahl said that, as the widow, she was entitled to the money. Gibson-
Campbell cited a 1994 divorce settlement that stated her ex-husband would maintain adequate life insurance to pay for their son's child support and college.
Both Dahl and Gibson-Campbell were listed as beneficiaries on the insurance policy, court records show.
The insurance company filed suit in April 2002 in Denver U.S. District Court, asking a judge to decide the rightful beneficiary. In February of this year, MetLife filed a similar action over an additional $300,000.
Hundreds of pages of documents followed.
Dahl hinted that Gibson-Campbell wanted the money only for herself, and that her husband honored all the commitments to his ex-wife in the divorce. Among a litany of concessions in the divorce agreement, Jason Dahl paid his ex-wife $2,200 each month from October 1994 to May 1998.
Gibson-Campbell "waived all rights to maintenance from the decedent after May 1998. She has no entitlement to benefits . . .," Sandy Dahl's court documents say.
Gibson-Campbell shot back in her own court papers. The insurance money was for her son, her attorney wrote.
Gibson-Campbell equated Dahl's approach to "harassment," adding in court documents that the "invalid claims have caused this defendant to . . . suffer mental anguish."
As the two sides fought in court, Matt found peace in school work and in music. He maintained nearly straight A's at Chatfield and became the clarinet section leader in his marching band.
"I could sit here and mope and I could feel sorry for myself; sure, that would be easy," Matt said. "That doesn't get me anywhere. It doesn't help."
Sheryl Clark Stoll, Jason Dahl's cousin and the executor of both the Dahl estate and of Matt's trust fund, said the litigation brought the family closer to Matt.
Still, she said, the court battle "caused a lot of hard feelings and caused many of us, on a daily basis, to be constantly reminded of the grief and the loss."
Sandy Dahl contends the Dahl family misunderstood her intentions. Her husband failed to put his estate in order before his death, leaving her to "tie up loose ends."
The two sides began settlement talks in February, court documents show, though it took five more months to reach an agreement.
Matt's trust fund eventually received the entire insurance payout - roughly $700,000 - in exchange for undisclosed concessions.
Both sides said the agreement prevents anyone from talking about the settlement.
"We're just putting everything behind us now," Gibson-Campbell said. "This second year has been a lot more about healing than anger."
But the year's end brings more questions about Matt and Sandy Dahl's future.
The two must decide before a Dec. 22 deadline whether to sue United Airlines or take a lump-sum payout from the Sept. 11th Victim Compensation Fund.
The fund, which Congress established weeks after the attacks, was created to protect airlines from massive lawsuits and takes into account the person's life expectancy and future earnings.
Those who apply for victim compensation waive their right to sue.
Fewer than half of the 3,000 victims' families have filed for the money. The average payment is around $1.5 million.
Stoll declined to say whether Jason Dahl's estate would apply for the victim payment, but Sandy Dahl said suing United is "out of the question."
'I love you'
Matt Dahl imagines his father sitting in the bleachers at one of his high school's football games. Matt is on the field with his band, marching during halftime.
"Sometimes I wish that he was there to see me," Matt said. "In a way, I know he's there. He's not there physically, but I feel him."
His mother said Matt talks about his father every day.
In the past year, though, the conversations have turned from memories of private plane flights and baseball games to wanting what can never be again.
Matt finds himself thinking about graduating in May. He thinks about finishing college, getting his first job and finding the special girl he'll marry.
"All these pinnacles in my life, and Dad isn't going to be there for them," Matt said as he sat on a couch in the Jefferson County home he shares with his mother, stepfather and stepbrother.
"I'm healing in my own way," he said.
Matt has yet to see his father's grave. He has yet to visit the Shanksville crash site.
"I asked him if he wanted to go, and he said he's not ready for that," Gibson-Campbell said. "Matt has to be able to get through this in his own time."
If he's learned anything, Matt said, it's that he needs to let people know how much he cares about them.
Matt smiles when he thinks of the last words he shared with his father: "I love you," he said as his father pulled away from the high school parking lot on Sept. 10, 2001.
These days, Matt never leaves the house without telling his mother the same thing. Life, the teenager knows, can be taken away in an instant.
So, too, does Sandy Dahl, who says that this is the year things will change for her. She plans to return to her job as a United flight attendant and is busy with a scholarship fund dedicated in her husband's name.
Roughly $100,000 has been raised for students who want to study aviation at Metropolitan State College of Denver or at San Jose (Calif.) State University, where her husband graduated.
"I need to focus on what's left and rebuild what's left," said Dahl, who moved last year from the Ken Caryl home she shared with her husband and Matt.
Jason Dahl and Gibson-Campbell had joint custody of their son.
As for speaking to Matt again, Sandy Dahl won't speculate. Matt declined to talk about their relationship.
Instead, he said, he looks forward to a time when people stop asking questions about the day his father died.
"Sometime, all this attention will end," he said. "I'm going to walk outside one day and things will be that much more normal.
"But my dad will always be with me."
Sounds about right.
I don't know where you get the part about the boy. He's stuck in the middle of these two harridans and he was 15 when his father was murdered in the most spectacular way.
"Sometimes I wish that he was there to see me," Matt said. "In a way, I know he's there. He's not there physically, but I feel him."
He's definitely a much better person than his "two mothers".
BTW. Did you read the whole article?
I was not murdered only because my ex was too slow on the trigger, but I have a brat like this kid. My brat is now 37 but still acts the punk. The kid, at 15, knows right from wrong so we can not make the excuse that the poor little boy is caught in the middle. This kid and my loutish son both chose their path and know how to manipulate.
Yes, for what it is worth, I read the whole article. I still think the ex is a money gurbbing bitch, the kid is a punk and the widdow is getting the shaft.
Yup, read the whole article, and I've six kids, and I hope that if anything tragic happens to me they'd mourn my passing, and move forward with their lives..., quickly.
Someone taught this kid to hang onto his "feelings" and the past. He can't even visit his father's gravesite because of his "feelings".
Useless, and thoughly justified in his uselessness.
As the two sides fought in court, Matt found peace in school work and in music. He maintained nearly straight A's at Chatfield and became the clarinet section leader in his marching band.
If he's learned anything, Matt said, it's that he needs to let people know how much he cares about them. Matt smiles when he thinks of the last words he shared with his father: "I love you," he said as his father pulled away from the high school parking lot on Sept. 10, 2001. These days, Matt never leaves the house without telling his mother the same thing. Life, the teenager knows, can be taken away in an instant.
Read the story again without the cloud of hate in your heads.
Go away, please.
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