What we did not expect is our middle child to take that phrase literally.
Nick was never a fan of school. He did well, but never loved it. His senior year in high school, he decided on a career path: aviation.
“I want to be a pilot,” he said. And he never wavered.
Nick became infatuated with airplanes at a very young age. He would build an airport in the living room with all of his toy airplanes; he loved when we went on trips requiring airline travel. He even followed his dad’s work trips on the FlightTracker app.
We decided to dig a little deeper into how one becomes a professional pilot. First of all, win the lottery because it is expensive. Second, schedule a Discovery Flight.
A Discovery Flight allows a prospective pilot to experience first hand what it’s like in the cockpit of an airplane. A small airplane. An airplane that looks more like a glorified washing machine than something that can actually defy gravity. Well, that is what it looks like to an anxious mom, anyways.
To Nick, it looked like his future goals.
“Do you want to go with us?” the flight instructor asked me.
“Absolutely not,” I said.
My stomach was in knots as I watched the tiny Cessna engines rev up and the little plane launch into the sky.
The hour-long Discovery Flight felt like an eternity. When the plane landed I realized I had been holding my breath for the duration - okay, maybe not that long.
Secretly, I was hoping Nick would decide that piloting was not the gig for him. Surely, he felt sick in that little plane.
“We did a stall!” he said. (Google that.)
There are things as a parent that I don’t need to know.
Undeterred, Nick proceeded with the next steps to becoming a pilot: acceptance into flight school and navigating a First Class medical certificate with the Federal Aviation Administration. (Word of advice: if your toddler is considering a career as a pilot, start this process now because it WILL take forever plus a day for a final decision to be rendered.)
It is hard to trust the process when you want everything to go as planned for your child, but in this case, we have no choice. So, we wait. We wait for the day when the FAA gets to his file and he can proceed with his dream.
At least for now, Nick’s head is not in the clouds and he is working hard - on the ground - in anticipation.
Motherhood, Part II, is a recurring column in the News-Sun.
About the Author