Whew, it has been a hot minute since I’ve posted and all I can say is wow, don’t wish away time because it already has a habit of tricking us into thinking we have so much more than we really do.
This past week I attended a Celebration of Life for a gentleman I'd only met once but felt like I always knew. He was a colleague and friend of my husband's, both ex-military and commercial airline pilots and both long-standing members in the Esprit de Corp of Aviation.
As I sat listening to a recounting of his life story I cast my watery gaze over those in attendance. The youngest was his unborn granddaughter who met her Grandpa when he placed his hand on his daughter's belly to simultaneously say Hello, tell her he loved her and Goodbye, in the last breaths he had left. The oldest in attendance was the Great Grandpa of that unborn baby girl. He was sat in the front pew, silently whispering his final farewells to his son.
I was sitting amongst a number of the departed's comrades and friends who, in their day, were Fighter Pilots, Transport Pilots, Rescue Pilots, Cargo Pilots and Commercial Pilots. Pilots who had placed their own lives and those of millions of others collectively, over decades of flying, in the hands of themselves, their Wingmen, their Co-Pilots, the mechanics who built and maintained their aircraft, Air Traffic Controllers, Mother Nature, a plane load of prayer and the God of their Hearts.
These men and women, many of whom are my dear friends, mourned the passing of their friend with tears unabashedly falling in the sadness of their loss. They also laughed with tears unabashedly falling as they listened to the recounting of happy memories and sometimes harrowing moments, including the dearly departed having ejected from his airplane not once but twice as a Fighter Pilot!!! Tom Cruise has nothing on this guy!
The Pastor spoke of this beloved man as always having lived his life aiming high. Of never settling for mediocrity. Of knowing who he was and using his talents and abilities to propel himself upward, reaching for the skies and unfailingly holding himself to a higher standard.
The Pastor quoted Michelangelo:
"The greater danger for most of us lies not in setting our aim too high and falling short; but in setting our aim too low, and achieving our mark."
I heard this and thought it perfectly summed up all of the Pilots I knew in that chapel. Every one of them had a dream to one day Captain their aircraft. They didn't allow mediocrity in nor did they ever set their mark too low. Not achieving their goal just didn't enter the conversation. They were on a mission, on a skyward trajectory until they were pinned with the wings they had earned and only then could they call themselves a Pilot.
They flew to heights they always knew were possible, with hard work, grit, grace and sometimes shit ass luck. Each of them chose their path and climbed to the stratosphere and back while on it. They literally aimed high, but, it wasn't just their professions that they rose up to meet because being a Pilot isn't what defined them, nor does any profession or vocation define any of us.
We are not the sum of what we do, we are the sum of all of our parts. We are someone’s child, sibling, parent, Aunt or Uncle, Grandparent, co-worker, colleague, friend, spouse, mentor. We exist in a body and inside that body exists our spirit, our empathy, our compassion, our caring, our intelligence, our creativity, our love.
We are literally a vessel that carries the essence of who we are and who we are is clothed in so much more than what we do, how much we make, in what we own, and, in the case of the gentleman who passed, a ratty, old airline uniform raincoat that he wore daily, rain or shine, long after he flew his last flight. No one knows why he loved that coat but it doesn’t really matter why, what matters is he is remembered and loved even more because he wore it.
When we are about to pass and should we have the chance to ponder on our life, I don’t believe any of us will be wishing we had made more money, worked more hours, had less wrinkles or garnered more accolades. I believe we would wish that we had spent more time with those we loved, that we worked less, that we lived true to who we were and cared less about what others wanted of us, that we had the courage to express our feelings, that we allowed ourselves to be happy, every damn moment that we could be and, that we always aimed as high as the heavens.
Ironically, I left that day feeling more alive for having witnessed this Celebration and perhaps that is one of the main purposes of these observances. We gather to honour a life in community and share with each other how we were touched by the soul departed. We gather to lift each other up in our lowest moments, pay our respects to someone who made a difference in our lives by joining in our own journey, even from the afterlife.
Death is sad, it’s heartbreaking, it's so brutally final. We grieve because we love and in that grief and love we seem to instinctively take stock of how we ourselves are doing. Am I aiming high and failing or am I hovering on low with nowhere else to go? What story will be told of me at the end of my life?
I didn’t know you personally though I always knew of you. I knew of your illustrious career, your unfailing courage, your kindness, your humour, the impact you made on others while you were here and the impact you continue to make since your passing.
You lived well, you loved well and it’s obvious you never let your wings get wet enough to ever keep you from soaring. I suspect the raincoat helped.
May the wind be always at your back and that raincoat always be on it ...Fly West.
Love Kiki,
Xoxo
“ In the end, we all become stories.” — Margaret Atwood
Photo from Wix Stock
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Well written my friend. XO