Well, today was the day those dreams came true.
At 27, I finally sat in the captain’s seat of a commercial jet.
It was my first flight as a full-fledged captain.
“Nervous, Captain?” my co-pilot asked.
I looked out at the runway stretching toward the sun and placed a hand over the photo in my pocket, tucked right against my heart.
I finally sat in the captain’s seat of a commercial jet.
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I smiled at him. “Just a little, Mark. But childhood dreams really can take flight, can’t they?”
“They sure can,” he said, giving me a thumbs-up.
“Let’s get this bird in the air.”
***
The takeoff was perfect.
We reached our cruising altitude, and as I looked out at the azure sky, I thought about all the ways I had tried to find my father over the years.
I remembered late nights scrolling through pilot registries, sending emails that were never answered, and freezing old photos to study the birthmark in crowds at airports.
I thought about all the ways I had tried to find my father.
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I’d convinced myself that if I just flew enough routes and worked in the right places, our paths would eventually cross.
But up there, steady and in control, the searching finally felt unnecessary.
I was already where I had spent my life trying to get.
I let out a sigh. Could I really give up searching for him when I’d been at it for so long? It had become as much a part of my life as flying.
I had no idea then that I was closer to finding him than I’d ever been before.
Could I really give up searching for him?
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A few hours into the flight, I heard a sharp bang from the first-class cabin right behind us.
My heart rate spiked instantly.
“What on earth?”
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