A Christmas Story

In French's A Christmas Story, a couple broken by a hot summer and recent death's tries to escape the pain. The wife suffers silently, blaming the silos for killing a neighbor and a farmhand. The man, Will, tries to reassure her that the exploding silos will not bother them again. He's just had them inspected, and the explosion at the other farm was a freak incident. At first, it seems like their young son was killed, as the room has a rollaway bed and bozes filled with toys.
Once we are introduced to the airplane, things change. It is unclear to me whether or not "several miles below" means flying (in which case the boy is a young man) or the farm is on a mountain (and the boy would still be young). The ending is significant because by now, the reader knows the boy has died. It explains the boxes and the empty room. Will's last thought in the story occurs when he looks at the ruins of the Nordstrom's, and remembers when he bought the plane for his son at Christmas. My guess is that this signifies his son was a victim of the exploding silos.