Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds - and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of - wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there,
I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air.
Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue
I've topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or even eagle flew -
And, while with silent lifting mind I've trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand and touched the face of God.
- John Gillespie Magee Jr.
On a Wednesday morning, after doing our best in slightly less than a month, to wrap up my blessed sister's affairs, we boarded a plane with a few minutes to spare, tucked the two dachshunds underneath the seats, and settled back hoping we would beat the thunderstorms rolling in.
Back in my cash earning days when I would average around eighteen airplanes a month, it never ceased to amaze me as the jet would break through the sky and suddenly you were walking on top of the clouds. I must admit though, it was at around five hundred and fifty miles an hour.
I always thought this must be what the pathway to heaven looks like. Somewhere in my twenty-year sojourn across the skies, I stopped getting an aisle seat and always got the window.
From there I wrote many letters. Seven of these made it into a book named Christmas Unwrapped. My friends ‘made’ me do it.
So yes, after a month of grief, laughter, joy and so many tedious details I hope I never have to go through anything like that again, we broke through the clouds and rode the sky west. It is a constant normal, when you're flying at thirty-five to thirty-eight thousand feet, with the temperature 61° below zero, the vistas WILL stun you.
I could not help but think that now my lifelong confidant was indeed touching the face of God as He held her face in His Divine, All Loving and Wonderful Hands.
And He said with that beautiful smile on His Face…
“It is finished!”
Clement
One hundred to one and fifty attended her celebration. Six hundred and fifty-four watched it lived streamed.