A Flight With Grief.

I stared up at the sky yesterday. It was blue, empty of clouds, and the sun was shining bright. Far above me was an airplane. I realized how much I miss being on them, how much I miss going somewhere new. I wondered where they were going, or if they were coming home. I could see the plane easily, but I know that if they looked out of their window, they wouldn’t have seen me—just a simple country girl with dreams that stretch far beyond the town she feels stuck in.

I know you’re probably wondering, what does this have to do with grief?

Well, I’ll tell you. As I watched the plane, I was listening to my grief playlist, and I had a thought: What if we could take a plane to heaven? What if we could just fly up to see who we’re missing, even if just for a little while?

Would just a few hours with who we’re missing be enough for us to keep going down here, or would we just want more?

How many of us would trade our round-trip ticket for a one-way so we could stay with them, to avoid the feeling of leaving them behind again?

How many of us would miss our flights for just a few more hours?

Would being able to do that change our view on loss, grief, and love?

We go back into our memories to see the ones we love whenever we want. There’s no ticket. No cost. No plane. Nothing but a direct flight to moments that are now lost to time—moments that live on only in our hearts.

So I wonder if not being able to have visiting hours with our loved ones is what makes our memories so special. We can travel back for as long as we want without rushing, but when we come back to this reality, we are struck with the reminder that they are only in our memories now.

Maybe not being able to hop on a plane and just go is a good thing. If coming out of our memories back to reality hurts, I can’t imagine what it would be like to see them for just a day and have to come back without them—to feel as if we are leaving them behind once more.

We could say that we’re going on vacation and we’ll be home soon. That could keep us going through every tomorrow, but I know we’d all continue looking up at the sky when the clouds appear, wondering if they’re sitting on them, looking down at us—or tracing the path of a plane as it moves across the open sky, wondering who is going to visit.

Or is it a plane full of loved ones going home?

The more I think about it and let my thoughts out, I’m starting to believe that our feet are meant to stay on the ground when it comes to those who wait for us—because they have their own magical ways of coming back to us down here. They want us to stay and live our lives, because they’ll always be with us. Whether it’s on the wings of a cardinal, a feather that floats to our feet, or the shape of a heart in the sky. We live on in their memories too, and they’ll always make sure we know that they haven’t truly left us.

So maybe we can’t get on a plane to visit, and maybe that would be a bad thing if we could—but at the end of the day, our loved ones fly to us in every magical way that can be seen, heard, or felt.

One day, I want to believe that when it’s our turn to board the plane, all the ones we love will be there to greet us when we land at the airport on the other side.