He once told me, peering over a glass of scotch, “Happiness is the difference between expectation and reality.”
When he got cancer, I expected him to beat it. I don’t know why. I just couldn’t imagine any alternative.
But reality won. And the difference between my expectation and reality was a overwhelming cold, dark void.
I was in Florida, picking up an airplane for my flight school I had never flown before, when I was told that things suddenly and without warning turned for the worse.
I had never flown faster in my life. Two hundred miles per hour over ground, temperatures and pressures at the top of the green - I expected that surely I would get home in time to say goodbye.
But by the time I arrived, he was non-responsive.
Today he passed.
We had plans. Expectations to drive together, the Miata and the Porsche. Plans to fly to Nantucket when he felt up for it. He kept asking to buy my Volkswagen, saying that he wish he never sold his.
But instead, his wife is hugging me, crying, telling me that she’s sorry he never got to fly with me. That he really wanted to.
I wanted to be strong. But I broke down then. My expectations were in the firmament, while reality was buried in the earth below.
One of the principles that governs the function of the wing is Newton’s Third Law. Every action has an equal and opposite reaction. The wing turns airflow downwards, and the air pushes the wing up.
And as I pass over the world, the world passes me by.
In the last three years of my aviation career, I missed the opportunity to say goodbye to my friend. The opportunity to say goodbye to my dog. I missed two of my own birthdays. I missed out on love. On life. All of these expectations stolen by reality. Hopes and wishes losing out to time, fuel, and distance.
I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you in your final moments. I’m sorry we never flew to Nantucket. I’m sorry we never went on that drive. I’m sorry that I simply wished and hoped instead of setting expectations. I will be there for your family. I will remember your stories. I will miss you so much.
And I will ground my expectations so that maybe one day, reality will come through.
Goodbye, my friend. I’ll see you at the finish line.
