It's in his blood

A heart attack - the very definition of a widow maker - took my dad when my son was just 2 years old.

So, no, Gabe doesn’t remember anything about him. He has to hear all of my dad’s stories secondhand. A little bittersweet, sure. But it was a fact I’d long come to terms with over the past 15 years.

Until my son decided he wanted to become a professional pilot. 

My dad was a pilot.

He flew A-6 Intruders during Vietnam as a Marine. He spent his final time in the service as a flight instructor, teaching the next generation of fighter pilots to fly and flip and race through the skies. He traded wings for a tractor seat when he moved us back home to Missouri to help my grandparents with the family farm.

He never flew again. Dad said that if he couldn’t fly a fighter or an attack aircraft, he simply wasn’t interested.

Part of me thinks his heart just wasn’t in it. The rush he got from flying military planes wasn’t something he could recreate as a private pilot. So it was a part of his life he packed away, only bringing out when he wanted to share a good story.

Gabe has heard a few of those stories, but I don’t think he knows all the details. He’s seen photos of my dad in uniform, standing by a jet. My dad’s flight helmet has an honored place on the bookshelf in our family room. I still have his leather flight jacket I wear when the mood hits me. So he sees that a part of my dad is still with us; a quiet presence, even after all this time.

***

It’s a lot to ask a 17-year-old kid to choose a career path.

Unlike kids who take easier classes their senior year, Gabe loaded up on dual credit and honors courses. What kind of kid chooses a high-level engineering class or college physics in high school instead of a fun class like Spanish?

My kid.

So it was no surprise when he started talking about engineering as a career. He’s already been accepted into a highly selective aerospace engineering program. He’s working on additional college applications, exploring scholarship opportunities, visiting campuses. He’s concentrating on soccer and looking toward the postseason. He’s hanging with friends and going to haunted houses. He’s watching Netflix, got his motorcycle license and is planning for his pilot’s too.

He’s a teenage boy enjoying his final year of high school before adulthood comes crashing in like the Kool-Aid Man in an ‘80s television commercial.

Then one night over dinner, he said with more passion than he ever showed when he discussed engineering, “Mom, I’m thinking about becoming a professional pilot.”

Ever been kicked in the heart?

I have. While sitting at the dinner table with my kid, hearing him say those words and immediately thinking, “Son of a bitch.”

For the first time in years - YEARS - I was pissed my dad was gone. 

Grieving a loss that was more than just his presence in our lives but the missed opportunity of conversations he could have had with Gabe. About the love of flying. The influence he could have had. The wisdom he would have shared. 

Not to be.

Never to be.

My husband and I have never pushed Gabe down one path over the other. College. The military. Trade school. It’s HIS life, not ours.

Then he got the chance to fly a private plane and saw the world - and his possible future - from a different view than he’d ever experienced before.

It was almost love at first sight.

Of all the careers my kid could choose? The millions of options available to him?

It would be flying.

And now I realize how much influence those secondhand stories may have had. And how much my dad is still here.

Gabe’s career choice won’t be easy. It will be dangerous and stressful and time consuming and did I mention dangerous?

My mom when she heard the news?

She smiled a little smile and said, "What can you do? It's in his blood."

At least I know my kid will always have a kick-ass copilot watching from above.