Sharing a sky

 

If you’ve lost a parent - especially before their time, you spend time wondering “what if?”

With each goal that Gabe reaches during his flight training, I fist-pump the air and do a little happy dance. It isn’t easy, even though he makes it look like it is.

Less than 1 percent of the population has a private pilot’s license. That number shrinks even more with every checkride he passes.

And let’s face it. He’s not training to work in a safe office job where the biggest security risk is someone stealing his lunch from the communal fridge.

Instead, he’ll be flying 30,000 feet in the air. In an industry that has its own security force. He’s learning to prepare for bad weather, mechanical failure. Terrorists and bombs. Drunk or angry passengers.

And so much of pilot training takes place on the ground. So. Many. Rules. And. Regulations. The FAA. Flight operations. Air traffic control. Getting that all-important medical certification.

If it were easy, we’d all be doing it, right?

My dad, who was a fighter pilot in the Marines and served during Vietnam, lost more friends in flight school than he did during combat.

Let that sink in.

He lost more friends…in flight school…than in combat.

I think about that a lot.

I think about what Gabe’s going through right now.

If you ask him what he loves about flying the most, he’ll quickly answer, “Every flight is different.”

For a kid who had no clue two years ago what he wanted to do with his life, it’s been amazing to see him struck so throughly with the certainty that his future is in the skies.

Many of his fellow students are second- and even third-generation pilots.

So is Gabe.

He just didn’t grow up that way. My dad died when Gabe was just 2 years old. And don’t think for a minute that I don’t spend time wondering “what if?”

What if my dad were still here?

It’s not f**king fair.

I watch Gabe chase his dreams with a determination that makes me both proud and a little scared. At only 19, he’s mastering the skies, tackling challenges most people wouldn’t dare to face. And while I cheer him on with every milestone, there’s always that bittersweet shadow in the background. I can’t help but wonder how different things would be if my dad were still alive.

He would’ve been Gabe’s biggest fan, sharing stories of his own days as a fighter pilot, offering advice and encouragement that only someone who’s lived that life can give.

I imagine the two of them, heads bent together over flight manuals, talking through maneuvers and sharing a language I can’t fully understand. It breaks my heart that Gabe doesn’t get to experience that bond, that connection to his past, through the man who would’ve loved him so fiercely.

But instead, I’m here, doing my best to fill in the gaps, to be the one cheering from the sidelines, even when it feels like I’m fumbling through a world I never expected to navigate.
And though it’s not fair, I find hope in the way Gabe has taken flight, quite literally, carrying with him not just his own dreams but a legacy that stretches back to the grandfather he never really got to know.

Maybe that’s what keeps me going, that belief that in some way, they’re connected after all. Gabe flying high, my dad watching over him, both of them sharing a sky that spans generations.