2025-10-03
5 分钟Hello, I'm Lauren Laverne and this is Desert Island Discs postcards.
Funny, moving and memorable moments from those who've been cast away to our imaginary desert island.
Today's postcard comes from the head of science at NASA, Dr. Nicola Fox.
She'd not long started working on Parker's All Approve,
Nasa's mission to touch the sun when her husband passed away suddenly while she was travelling.
She told me about it in 2023.
So I was away,
actually I was in California at the sort of the big conference that we all go to in December and I...
left John with the children so my daughter was 13 months old and my son was three and a half and I went out to an evening meeting and a dinner so I remember you know I was walking back through San Francisco and I went to go into Macy's thinking I'll get something for the children and I put my hand on the door and I had this sort of really weird feeling
like I must I must go and call home immediately so you know I ran back to the hotel and I called home and John didn't answer and I thought oh it's fine he's gone to sleep and then in the morning I got up and I was getting ready and I was calling home and didn't didn't get any answer at home left a message no answer on the cell phone call work no answer at work but I kept calling home and after probably about 45 minutes of me calling the phone was answered and I just heard this voice say hello and I thought it was John so of course I said oh my god I've been so worried about you where the hell have you been and then there's this sort of pause and then I heard mommy and I realized it was my son who of course was not allowed to answer the phone so he answers the phone and I said James and he said yes and I said where's where's daddy and he said oh he's asleep and I said can you wake him up and he said no he's sleeping by his closet and so I actually dialed 911 and I mean I think every emergency vehicle known to man went to my house but I stayed on the phone with my son to talk him through various things you know
because I still don't know what's happened and he's only three and a half and he doesn't know what's happened either and I knew he was terrified so you know and I when they told me okay the police are on their way and I said they can't break down the door I can't have this image in my son's head and so I said okay I'll get him to open the door and so I said
because he told me he was hungry and I said oh well you can't reach the serial
because it's on the high shelf I said so I've asked a policeman to come over and help you get the cereal down.
So I need you to be very brave and go downstairs and unlock the door so the police can come in and help you get some food.
And he went down and opened the door and then it turned out that sadly John had died from an aortic aneurysm.
I mean that is an experience that's going to change you.
How did it change you?
So in some ways it kind of made me realise that Bad stuff happens to people, you know,
and I think that sometimes you can go through life thinking bad stuff happens to other people and then it happens to you and you know,
you realize you can survive it.