The last flight...

So simple, right?

Here's a little joke for you. How can you tell if there is a pilot in the room with you?

You won't have to - they'll tell you.

And with that, I am telling you that I am in fact a pilot and in so doing living the punchline of the joke. Like a lot of things I write about, it's a useful metaphor for what I see as a deeper message about my journey. But if I get to brag a bit in the process... well, I'm going to brag. So here it goes.

When I was a child, I dreamed of flying. I wanted to become a pilot, to sit at the controls of an airplane and take to the skies, soaring among the clouds. I joined the Royal Canadian Air Cadets at the earliest allowable age. I cut my hair, which was a wildly unpopular thing to do in the 70s. It didn't make me more popular with the kids at school, but honestly I was pretty unpopular anyway so this just gave them a concrete reason to tease me. I put on a heavy and uncomfortable uniform and went to my squadron's weekly parade. I took extra classes in airmanship and spent every summer at different camps around the country. When I was sixteen, I was successful in getting a scholarship and earned my glider pilot's licence and when I was seventeen, I repeated the process and earned my powered pilot's licence.

I had achieved my childhood dreams. And then I didn't fly for thirty years.

Why?

Well, at first it was simple economics. Given the income I earned delivering pizzas at seventeen, I would have to work about twenty hours to fly for a single hour. But after I finished university I would be earning more money, right? It would be easier to afford then, right?

That is hypothetically true. Once I graduated I was earning more money so that now it only cost the equivalent of about five hours of work to fly for one hour. But by that time I hadn't flown for seven years. I wanted to become more established in my career and seven years turned into ten. My wife and I decided to start a family and ten turned into fifteen which turned into twenty and so on. Frankly, by the time I had reached a full decade without flying I started to think of it as something I used to do, rather than something I do.

I figured that I would need to virtually completely retrain and the cost of doing so could be better spent on other more practical things. But the memories of flying remained in the back of my mind, singing the siren song of adventure and freedom and the pride of being able to do something most people have only dreamed of.

Here's a picture of me taken today...

Look at that smile!

The story of how I wound up renewing my pilot's license and logging over 230 flying hours (which is a lot for a private pilot, in case you didn't know) is a whole story unto itself. The really important part of this is not how but why I finally got back behind the controls and let a young woman half my age teach me how to fly again.

Even a bad day in the air is better
than most days on the ground...

I did it because I realized on that day that it was the last day of the rest of my life.

It's a cliche, I know. And I generally try to avoid cliches, but sometimes they are just so appropriate that using them saves me writing or saying ten times the number of words. And this cliche is particularly appropriate for how I try to live my life. It's also really pertinent to what I'm facing.

Tomorrow is my surgery day, you see.

Getting back into the cockpit of an airplane was overwhelming. It was terrifying at times. I did not do well with some of the tasks and I felt more than a little unsafe at some times. But the trained, professional instructor who was with me had my long-term goals in mind and balanced them against my short-term safety. She helped me find a lilypad that I could achieve, then pushed me to jump to the next. And the next. And the next after that. In less than ten hours of instruction she was satisfied that I displayed the necessary competence to be a fully-qualified private pilot again.

Going up for a flight today was really important to me. It wasn't so important that I would endanger my life nor the life of my family who came with me nor the lives of people on the ground. I would never put others in peril just because I want to achieve something. But I really wanted to fly today because, you see, it could be the last flight I ever take.

I don't have any concerns or dire predictions about my surgery tomorrow. I don't think I will die on the operating table and I am very confident that I will make a full recovery. I've already checked and nothing that is likely to happen tomorrow nor anything to do with my cancer diagnosis would invalidate my pilot's medical. It will take me a few months before I will be physically safe to fly again, but I will fly again. So why do I say this could be the last flight I ever take?

Simple. Every flight I take could be the last one.

I'm a good and cautious pilot. But there will come a time when I will no longer be physically or possibly even mentally able to fly. That is not likely to be for at least twenty years, but that day will come. I could be involved in a motorcycle accident or be hit by a car while crossing the street - both far more statistically likely than being in an aviation accident, by the way - and never be able to fly again.

Every day of my life is the last day I might be able to do anything. And that is actually really encouraging to me.

Thinking this way helps me to stay in the moment. It helps me to see the beauty of the world around me, to accept the words of caring and concern that are pouring in from so many amazing people as I approach tomorrow and see that my world is not one defined by cancer, but instead is defined by caring and beauty.

Obviously I don't approach every day as if it were my last. I am human and I get wrapped up in what I think I should do rather than what I know I want to do. And it's not that I am suggesting being selfish above all other considerations... but there are times when it's really important to be a little bit selfish.

Try to approach each activity you enjoy as if it might be the last you get to enjoy it. Don't let thirty days go by waiting to do something you want to do, let alone thirty years.

Approach each metaphorical flight in your life as if it were your last.