Last flight

My gnarled hands move across the controls of the Cessna 172 Skyhawk, eyesight fading now, cataracts covering one almost entirely.   The slight shake of my Parkinson's Disease clearly visible.  My wife, tears of pain in her eyes, holds my hand, bringing it to her lips for a tender kiss.

60 years of happy marriage, 3 kids, 7 grand kids, and 4 great grand kids so far, but this decision was for us.  My wife's cancer was back, and this time there would be no cure, no months of painful chemo, no watching her become a living skeleton, again.

We'd updated our wills, sold our properties, set up trust funds, and now all we had was this plane, and photographs of our family in front of us.

They'd warned us not to fly so far North, to avoid the storm raging over the Mountains, but we knew our own minds, we had the means, and the ability to decide our own fate.  I pull back the control stick, taking the plane higher, through the clouds, the beautiful sunlight shining through.

"I love you," I speak, the first words in an hour.

"And I love you."

I push the controls forward, making the nose of the plane point towards the ground far below, letting gravity and the Lycoming O-360 engine do their thing.  The plane accelerates beyond 300 km/h, we take off our safety harnesses, engulf each other in a long and perfect, yet final embrace.