July 24, 2006 @ 3:35 pm | Filed under: Family

"Don’t ask yourself what the world needs; ask yourself what makes you come alive. And then go and do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive."   — Harold Whitman

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I stood not two feet from the runway. Surprisingly enough, a slight breeze softly caressed my cheek as I shaded my eyes and peered into the early morning sky.

Forty-five minutes earlier, a (quite cute) blue and white Cessna 172 had taxied down this very runway, past this very spot where I now stood. Close enough to glimpse the familiar orange shirt through the massive windshield and close enough to see that the person in that particular orange shirt occupied the left-hand seat.

The pilot’s seat.

My stomach clenched in anticipation and I momentarily considered shutting my eyes and not even looking. But somehow that would have detracted from the moment, and I knew without a doubt that this was a moment to be remembered.

A dream was being birthed right before my very eyes.

I stood in amazement and watched with wide eyes and a pounding pulse as the plane eased from the constraints of the small municipal runway and began a steady upward climb. Before I could release the breath I’d been holding, the Cessna had become nothing more than a tiny speck in the wide blue sky above me.

The thing was - it had taken my heart with it.

For as long as I’ve known him, Mike has talked about the day he’d resume flying lessons and finally obtain his private pilot’s license. For many of those years I was able to nod, mumble the appropriate wifely responses, and know that this dream wasn’t at the top of the list of dreams to finance.

But the day came and suddenly all those previously spoken wifely responses were called to active duty. It was time to pay more than lip service to a dream that had long since taken root in my husband’s heart.

I know a little something about heart dreams. And I’m a big believer in the pursuit of these dreams.

I guess it just helps when they don’t involve bodily endangerment and don’t require waivers, physicals, or rising 17,000 feet above the ground, you know?

So this past Saturday, for fifty minutes, I hung out close to the runway. Oh, I’d sit for a while and make a valiant attempt to read a magazine I’d brought along. But with every buzz of a distant engine, I’d leap to my feet and aim the viewfinder of my camera, zoom in, and hold my breath in anticipation.

Finally I spotted it as Mike made a final embankment and began to line the plane up with the runway. Pride rippled through me as a few guys from the office came out to watch "the new guy" make his first landing.

It was all I could do to stay behind the camera and capture it all on film. I would much rather have focused my eyes on the cockpit alone. But this was a dream in the making, and it deserved to be preserved for future generations.

"Nice."

I felt myself grinning like an idiot as the guy standing next to me nodded his approval at the gentle landing.

I smiled because I was proud. I smiled because I had managed to tame my own insecurities and fears and enjoy the experience.

But I guess I mostly smiled because my heart was safely on the ground again.

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For more pictures, check out the "Pilot Mike" album on the left.