Fighter Pilot: Operation Red Flag

Friday, March 11, 2005

It had then been three and a half years since the great disaster that one September eleventh back in two thousand one. Collette wondered how many even remembered the third anniversary of that dark day, the past fall. People quickly forgot – even those who had lived through such terrible days.

The skies of March were windy and cloud strewn, scuttling across the heavens in high winds – always a sky of the most unusual clouds and colors – sailing ships of the sky – with billows of gray, peach, and thistle-rose. There was even a light dusting of snow falling that morning as Collette opened the shades. There was a hot bowl of cream of wheat, and she decided that perhaps the day would not be quite as windy as it was the previous afternoon. It was perfectly lovely to hear the gales smash against the four corners of the office on Eagle Hill.

And the film the previous night had been quite spectacular. They were even given bags with a memento picture and a bag of salted pretzels for during the movie. It was thrilling to fly from the cockpit of nearly the fastest jet on earth. It nearly made Collette wish to pilot one herself. But she thought of Dad the whole time. She knew he was seeing himself there. It was his dream. And she knew that if he had the opportunity, he would take it, even now, twenty-five years later. She only wished there was some way.

Collette decided she still needed to think some things through about life. There always were more things to think through, weren’t there. Perhaps one day, she would know exactly what she was trying to get at, but she doubted it. After all, where was the adventure if she always knew just what she was talking about. There would be no mystery left for God to know only for Himself, and chuckle over when all of humanity was baffled by such a “simple” problem.