This Is What He Did After the Plane Crash

Roger Berlind was a successful man, despite several setbacks in his life. He majored in English at Princeton University and was involved in the Triangle Club, which put together musical productions.

Berlind served in the U. S. Army until 1954. He was a fluent pianist who played by ear. He pursued songwriting, but was unable to sell his music to publishers.

Despite knowing little about the world of finance, he interviewed for various positions on Wall Street. After many rejections, a firm finally picked him up.

Berlind would go on to create a small investment firm with friends. The firm later became swept up in a merger, followed by more deals. Berlind eventually became a chief executive and was successful.

But then his entire world fell apart.

Swept down by wind shear

Helen Berlind and three of her four children were on an Eastern Air Lines Boeing 727 non-stop flight from New Orleans to New York’s Kennedy Airport. Her flight encountered a severe electrical storm.

The plane’s captain attempted to land at JFK but entered into a microburst often found in severe thunderstorms. Microbursts consist of severe and localized winds capable of knocking down a plane. Microbursts contain wind shears, which vary in speed and direction.

An article in baruch.cuny.edu described what happened next:

As the Boeing 727 approached the runway, it was swept down by wind shear towards a row of lights. Its left wing was torn off by the lights in a matter of seconds and soon the impact of the ground shattered the plane into pieces. The explosion caused debris to fly in the surrounding area of Rockaway Boulevard. Flight 66 traveled from New Orleans to Queens, New York, with 124 people on board, eight of which were crew members. All but 11 people perished in the crash.

Tragically, Helen Berlind and her three children perished in the crash.

Roger Berlind was devastated. He quit his Wall Street job to take care of his toddler son, who had not taken the fateful trip with his mother and siblings.

There is a thin line

What do you do when your entire world crumbles? When tragedy or unexpected loss happens, how do you go on? What do you do next?

There is a thin line that separates laughter and pain, comedy and tragedy, humor and hurt. -Erma Bombeck

In the case of Roger Berlind, he suddenly found no meaning in his Wall Street work. As he later told the Wall Street Journal, “I wasn’t in any shape to do anything useful at the firm, and I didn’t want to be there.”

Berlind’s obituary in the Wall Street Journal explained what Berlind did next:

Reverting to his early love of show tunes and theater, he began investing in Broadway productions and soon found himself hooked. Over more than four decades, he had a role in producing more than 100 plays and musicals and won 25 Tony Awards. His hits included “The Book of Mormon,” “Amadeus,” “Sophisticated Ladies,” and “City of Angels.

Berlind remarried and lived to be 90 years old before succumbing in 2020 to a heart attack in his sleep. He survived the crushing loss of his first wife and three children by turning to his love for music and theater.

How much did they first pay you to give up on your dreams?

There’s a lesson in Roger Berlind’s life about how to overcome tragedy and reinvent yourself. Sometimes you have to look to the past to remember the things you were passionate about. The dreams you gave up on, still yearning for expression.

In the outstanding movie “Up In the Air,” George Clooney stars as a hatchet-man hired by companies to fire people. He’s training a young, new coworker (Anna Kendrick) and together they break the bad news to an employee.

Watch as Clooney’s character rescues his young trainee and reminds the man they’re firing that he can reinvent himself and revive an old dream:

An article in Forbes contains the following, eloquent paragraph:

We plot our lives carefully, toiling in relative obscurity, constructing private narratives of hope. We tinker and tweak with the script of our lives — shaping and reshaping it — as we face and overcome life’s challenges, and strive to reach and surpass its milestones.

No matter how well we’ve planned and built our lives, adversity and tragedy can turn everything upside down. You can be on top of the world one minute and in hell the next.

Life is not an accident

Don’t think it can happen to you? Just ask former basketball star Jay Williams, who used to play in the NBA for the Chicago Bulls. At one point people were calling him “Chicago’s second coming of Michael Jordan.”

But then he crashed his motorcycle into a light pole resulting in major, career-ending injuries. What followed were years of depression and demoralization.

Until he found a way to reinvent himself.

Williams realized that by sharing his story with others, he could heal. He could rebuild his life. His book, “Life Is Not an Accident: A Memoir of Reinvention,” details his journey from tragedy to reinvention.

An article in Forbes.com had this to say about Williams’ book:

Williams’ book celebrates the critical importance of learning to accept change. ‘This is about learning the process of letting go,’ he told me. ‘I had to allow myself to fall in love with something else. These are issues that everybody has in life.’

Today Williams will tell you that his tragedy taught him how to live.

Perhaps the same thing happened for Roger Berlind. Maybe the loss of his wife and children, crushing as it was, allowed Berlind to reignite an old dream. To rekindle his passion for music and theater.

The familiar rhythms of work

We often define ourselves by our careers. In a way, careers are a form of self-expression. But careers can be changed, and there are many forms of self-expression.

Jay Williams’ form of self-expression was basketball until the motorcycle accident ended it. Then, he wrote a memoir and became a public speaker and sports analyst on TV. He found another form of self-expression.

Of course, not everyone changes careers or reinvent’s themselves after adversity or tragedy.

Sheryl Sandberg is the Chief Operating Officer for Facebook and author of the book “Lean In.”

Sandberg’s husband, Dave Goldberg, died in a gym accident in 2015. He fell off a treadmill and hit his head, although an autopsy later revealed the cause of his death was a coronary arrhythmia.

In another book by Sandberg titled, “Option B: Facing Adversity, Building Resilience, and Finding Joy,” she describes what it was like telling her children that their father had died. An excerpt:

The screaming and crying that followed haunt me to this day — primal screams and cries that echoed the ones in my heart. Nothing has come close to the pain of this moment.

Despite this gut-wrenching experience, Sandberg remained in her position at Facebook and even found comfort in the familiar rhythms of work.

In the end, we will all face adversity and loss in our lives. Remember that you will get through it.

You might pick up the pieces and continue in your current career and life, like Sheryl Sandberg. Or, you might reinvent yourself in a new profession, like Roger Berlind and Jay Williams.

A few tears might be shed. It won’t be easy. But hang in there. Remember what Jay Williams said, how his tragedy taught him how to live. You’ll figure out how to go on living, too.

Before you go

I’m John P. Weiss. I draw cartoons, paint, and write about life. I focus on life lessons, personal development, and the creative arts. Sign up for my popular Saturday Newsletter here.

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This post was previously published on Medium.com.

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Illustrations by John P. Weiss