My father's lifelong dream was to obtain his private pilot's license. What he intended to do with it - well, that was mostly unclear until late in his too-short life. All he knew was that the sky was his first love, and he continually ached for it.
I don't know the story behind this desire. Maybe someone took him for a small craft airplane ride when he was a child. I do know that when Vietnam came around, he tried everything to join the Air Force, but was turned down due to his bad eyesight. Jaded and disappointed - and uninterested in trekking into the steamy jungle to almost certain death - Dad took what many would call the easy way out and avoided the draft by enrolling in college.
He became a chemist and experienced first significant success, then dizzying failure in business. He never really recovered emotionally from losing it all. But maybe that's when his abstract love of flight began to crystalize into a dream: he began to think about leaving everything behind and running off to Alaska to become a bush pilot.
It never became a possibility. Although Dad did realize his dream and did earn his pilot's license, he died from a sudden heart attack before he could put it to any kind of use aside from his own joy. I went up with him once and it was magical - which is saying something, since I'm terrified of heights.
Dad went from vigorously healthy to just a memory almost instantly. He was alone when he died. We never got to say good-bye to him. No closure, no farewell, just unanswered questions and a heart-breaking loss.
Dad loved poetry, and he loved flight; so it makes sense that one of his favorite pieces of literature was this short but ethereal poem by John Gillespie Magee Jr. I can't describe it in a way to do it justice, but John Denver - one of my late father's favorite musicians of all time - did.
The poem is in the public domain so I'm going to share it here.
High Flight
by John Gillespie Magee Jr. Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings; Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth of sun-split clouds,—and done a hundred things You have not dreamed of—wheeled and soared and swung High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there, I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung My eager craft through footless halls of air .... Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue I've topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace Where never lark nor ever eagle flew— And, while with silent lifting mind I've trod The high untrespassed sanctity of space, Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.
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