SEQUIM — John Strachan loved to fly and provide flight instruction to others. Intrigued by Elon Musk’s SpaceX and Jeff Bezos’ Washington-based Blue Origin, he dreamed of one day rocketing into space as an astronaut, slipping “the surly bonds of Earth” as poet John Gillespie Magee, Jr. put it in his poem “High Flight.”
President Ronald Reagan immortalized those words when he addressed the nation on the night of Jan. 28, 1986, paying tribute to the seven crew members who lost their lives when the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded 73 seconds into its flight.
Strachan slipped the surly bonds of earth in July 2023 at age 76. His passing was due to health issues related to the day in 1976 when, as a Kitsap County deputy, he was accidentally shot and left paralyzed by a Poulsbo police officer.
Confined to a wheelchair from that time forward, it seemed that Strachan would never soar again.
But more than a year and a half after his death, his widow Jennie Strachan has found a way to fulfill his dream posthumously.
Jennie plans to travel from her home in Sequim to Cape Canaveral in Florida to watch the liftoff of a Celestis Memorial Spaceflight mission that will carry a portion of John’s cremains. Some of John’s ashes are scheduled to be aboard two flights, one of which will be sent into the Earth’s orbit, with his ashes burning up like a shooting star upon re-entry, while the other will go into space and leave his ashes there forever.
The mission originally was set for this month, but a spokesperson said via email that it has been rescheduled for later this year.
Regardless, it appears that John L. Strachan, against all odds, will finally go to space.
‘A good human being’
John and Jennie were married for 28 years. There was a 17-year age difference between them. The two first encountered each other at a roller rink in Bremerton when Jennie was just 10 and John was a young deputy. Jennie loved to skate and would plead with the owners of the roller rink to let her in for free in exchange for her manning the coat room during an employee’s breaks.
As for John, he made sure everybody stayed safe while they had fun.
“He always worked the roller rink on the weekend,” Jennie said. “I think he did that for extra money, I don’t know; but he was always there.”
John would keep youngsters “on the straight and narrow,” Jennie said, and he was always kind to them. If a kid was hungry, he got them something to eat. If they needed a ride home, he would give them one.
“He was such a good human being,” Jennie said.
Time passed, and Jennie grew up, leaving the Bremerton roller rink behind.
One day in 1976, John and a Poulsbo police officer were at a closed restaurant where they were to meet with a burglary informant. The restaurant owner was friendly to law enforcement, Jennie said, and officers were always welcome to grab a bite to eat there.
John was making himself a sandwich when suddenly he saw smoke and his feet flew out from under him. Somehow, the police officer’s gun had discharged. The bullet hit John in the neck, impacting his spinal cord.
Jennie and John eventually encountered each other again thanks to Jennie’s profession. She worked at a medical lab but also had a side job with a home health agency. She recognized the former deputy’s name on a client list.
“I saw his name and I said, ‘I know him. I want to work with him,’” she recounted.
A few years later, the two began dating and eventually married. They lived in a small town outside Belfair.
“That man did not know he was paralyzed,” Jennie said. “He was so amazing. My husband could talk me through how to change a fan belt and alternator, you know, do different things with the car to fix it. He could talk you through anything. He was such a good teacher.”
She added, “The only time he knew he was paralyzed was if there were stairs or he couldn’t get around something. That would bother him a bit, but mostly, we had everything set up so well that he just flourished. He really did so well.”
John never let what had happened to him make him bitter or destroy his love of life.
“He never dwelled on it,” Jennie said. “He wasn’t one of those ones that felt sorry for himself or anything like that. He just got on with it.”
Physical reality
Although John had a positive outlook, his 47 years in a wheelchair took a toll on him physically. He had bladder issues and a subclavian blood clot, which can be caused by a catheter being inserted into a vein.
“Because he was paralyzed, he had to have a tube and then he’d have bladder problems and kidney problems because he couldn’t walk,” Jennie said. “So, his bladder was bleeding, he was hemorrhaging, and so they couldn’t take care of the blood clot. And his heart was really struggling because of being paralyzed.”
When John came home from his final hospitalization, he was on hospice care. Nevertheless, Jennie didn’t think he would die. She feels that the blood clot was his ultimate undoing.
“I was there when it happened, and it was very sudden,” she said of his death.
John had always been like a cat with nine lives, Jennie said, somehow bouncing back after every health challenge.
“But he didn’t come back from this one.”
Final flight
Jennie once asked John if there was anything in particular he wanted her to do in the event of his death. He replied that he wanted some of his ashes to be sent to Australia, a place that they both loved and where Jennie had gone to school. That made sense to her. But then he also said, “I want some of my ashes to go to outer space.”
She wasn’t sure whether he was kidding, but after John’s death, she found out from the funeral home director that such a thing was indeed possible.
She didn’t do it right away, though, because of the cost. She was on her own and planning a move to Sequim to be near family members. She arrived in Sequim last November.
“Once I got everything situated, I was able to afford it and, you know, the price is honestly no more than a regular funeral service,” Jennie said of Celestis Memorial Spaceflight missions. “But John didn’t want a regular funeral. He wanted to go to outer space. That’s what he wanted.”
She continued, “I ordered two things. One, he’ll be coming back in a couple of years as a shooting star, and the other one will go to deep space, and he will stay in deep space. That part (of his ashes) will never come back.”
The Serenity Flight will be part of Celestis’ 12th Earth orbit mission. It will be launched into space by ABOVE Space through SpaceX’s SmallSat Ridershare program.
Jennie is proud of being able to fulfill the wishes of the man she loved. It is so special, she said, and watching the rocket launch at Cape Canaveral will be “so amazing.”
“I think if someone wants something like this, they should do it,” she said.
For information, visit celestis.com.
And how would John feel about what his wife has done on his behalf?
“He would be so happy,” Jennie said confidently. “He would have just been over the moon.”
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Kathy Cruz is the editor of the Sequim Gazette of the Olympic Peninsula News Group, which also is composed of other Sound Publishing newspapers Peninsula Daily News and Forks Forum. She can be reached by email at kathy.cruz@sequimgazette.com.
