Airsickness.

Of all the problems and potential obstacles we talked about, airsickness was never one of them; it never even occurred to us.  This was a difficult blow.  I felt this could be the end of a dream that hadn’t even really started, but, Jeff didn’t agree.   Taking something over the counter wasn’t an option because they cause drowsiness and we couldn’t have that.  I remember asking him what we were going to do and his answer was firm with no reservation, “we keep going.”  Honestly, I didn’t have the same faith he did, I just kept thinking how do you quit being airsick? Is that even a thing?  Don’t you have to have medication or something?   As I was getting ready to write this I asked him why he was so confident at the time that he even COULD keep going.  He didn’t answer immediately, but finally said, “For me, there wasn’t another option, this HAD to work.”  And, I guess it’s not really a spoiler, since you know what he does for a living, to tell you that it DID work.   It still amazes me. 

Now, let me tell you how he was able to overcome what I thought was the impossible.

After Jeff’s disastrous first training flight, we decided to make some changes that might help.  First, lots of prayer and, second, no eating near the time of any flight.   Thankfully, his flight instructor was very laid back about the whole thing, makes me wonder if airsickness is not unusual among budding pilots.  Who knows?  Most likely it was the Lord who put this particular person in Jeff’s life just when he needed him.    So, Jeff showed up the next day, empty stomach, ready to fly.  He also brought Walmart bags, doubled up, so he wouldn’t have to throw up out of the window.   A bit of interesting information is the window on the small plane only slid open about two inches and it opened from the bottom, there was no rolling down the window. So being sick in such a small space, and having to use the window, took a bit of acrobatics, at the very least you better be limber.

And, on the second flight, the same thing happened.  Even with an empty stomach.  I guess there’s always something in there and out it came into his double ply Walmart bags.  Then came the third flight and, you guessed it, it happened again.  At this point I started to feel like we needed to reconsider this whole thing.  You can’t fly a plane if you’re sick.  But, no matter how bleak he might’ve felt, Jeff never once relented.  He just kept doubling up Walmart bags and heading to the flight school.  Then a miracle happened, on the fourth flight, he wasn’t sick, he brought home empty Walmart bags and we celebrated! The training flights kept coming and he kept not being sick!  It was such an answer to our prayers!   My husband was living out some of the best days of his life; he absolutely loved being thousands of feet in the air, controlling the plane and learning everything he could.  It was a special time for him, even if it was hard.   He was doing what he always dreamed of, and as far as he was concerned, nothing that he was able to control was going to stop him.

I’m going to pause here and fast forward to today.  We had our adult kids over this weekend because Jeff celebrated his fifty- fifth birthday…Happy Birthday, Babe!  We were discussing the blog and how telling our story has brought up so many memories.  Jeff told them about the Walmart bags and being so sick, and so determined to get through it, when I realized, yet again, nothing in life is going to be easy.  Seriously.  Any great relationship, any money earned, any accomplishment comes at a price.  I told the kids, “when you’re feeling like it’s just too hard, I want you to remember your dad sitting in a tiny airplane throwing up out the window and then into Walmart bags, but never giving up.   It would have been so easy to stop after the second flight or the third and decide flying just wasn’t for him, but if he had done that he would’ve missed out on the fourth and the revelation that maybe this dream could come true.  Don’t quit because it‘s hard.”   There is such a life lesson in this: keep trying, you never know if the next time you try, you will be successful!

The summer days rolled by and we fell into a good rhythm, I would take care of the kids and Jeff would go to training.  We didn’t see a lot of each other because Jeff’s schedule was so full, but we treasured the time we had because we knew when it was time for the kids to start school, I would head to Alabama for the entire school year.  We dreaded the separation, but were thankful for a place to live for free and a school system we felt good about.  The one bedroom apartment was getting smaller each day and, honestly, family time was hard on Jeff.  He loved being with us, but also wanted to spend every waking minute training so he could get done as quickly as possible.  Time was not on our side.

And then the day finally came.

It was late July and school would start in a few days, it was time to leave Jeff, Florida and the pool we’d grown to love and head to Alabama for the kids to start new schools.    When I think back on that day, I find it’s hard to come up with words to express how we felt.  The excitement we had at the beginning of our journey was waning in the difficulty of it all and now we were about to start something even harder.   But, there was no getting out of it or around it, we had to go through it, so I packed up all we had in our one bedroom apartment, loaded the van until it seemed impossible for any person to fit and then buckled the kids in the small remaining space.  Driving away, with Jeff in the rearview mirror, just about broke me. I just kept telling myself it was temporary and we’d get through it, what I really wanted to do was stop the van and cry my eyes out.  But, instead, I put in a Veggie Tales CD and listened along with the kids about how God is greater than all our fears.

Thank you, Bob the Tomato and Larry the Cucumber, for helping us through three hundred miles filled with uncertainty — with laughter, sing-alongs and Bible verses.  It was just what we needed.

God really is bigger than all our fears.