Blue Skies and Tail Winds?

These last months have been a challenge. June was especially painful - but also housed a beautiful day of remembrance for myself and my loved ones. We made Shaun's favorite foods up in the mountains, watched videos, looked at pictures, told how each had been and still was impacted by the life of this beautiful man. We concluded by playing a special song and releasing 34 red and white balloons into the mountains. As they drifted up over the peaks they looked so much like his Super Cub. It was such a painful moment - futilely willing the false vision into a reality that cannot be. The truth of his passing is still so painfully surreal at times it takes my breath away. June also contained some special moments with God. He is my comfort. My only foundation. And in the darkest moment of my life, He came and stayed with me... He walks with me still.
In August I started flight school. I feel a mixture of elation and gut-wrenching pain at the same time. It's the most bizarre combination of emotions I've ever felt.
Life always feels a bit like that now - a moment of joy, but incomplete and slightly pained. I've never felt it at such a magnitude until I started flying without Shaun. It brings me such happiness - yet, is the source of my greatest pain. It's such a perfect storm!

I'm excited about getting my private pilot licensure. I feel it's important... for Shaun, for me...
I now realize how simplified Shaun was making it when he was teaching me. I'm amazed at the amount of information and minutiae necessary. I feel tremendous internal pressure to somehow memorize and perfect everything... Shaun was such a devoted master of the things he undertook. I think about all the advanced certifications, endorsements, etc that he's acquired and I'm amazed that he somehow mastered it all, along with medicine/anesthesiology, and a HOST of other things (sky diving certifications, advanced scuba, knots and pulley systems, corvette racing, aerobatic competitions, kite surfing, rock climbing, mountaineering, kayaking, dirt-biking, mountain biking, road-cycling, morse-code/ham radios, marksmanship/shooting, ad infinitum.)
I have no idea how he assimilated so much information so completely. Inspiring and daunting.
It was a hurtful and special thing to wear Shaun's headset on my first day at the controls. I hear my CFI Keith in one ear and Shaun in the other. The old familiar feeling of the headset takes me back to another time. It's so easy to remember...

I've realized that the idea of blue skies and tail winds is truly more of an idea than a reality in life. I don't think God intended this life to be one of absolute ease - but rather of trial, of tribulation, of testing, learning, refinement, and of humility. Like Shaun expressed at times, I realize that metaphorical blue skies and tail winds are rare... Perhaps the wonderment and true living of life isn't in the blue skies, but the stormy ones. That is where we are tested... where Shaun left onlookers breathless and wide-eyed.

So, I'll do my best to fly in the winds, I can't hold them at bay despite my most desperate efforts. And hopefully, by the time I'm done, I'll know how to fly in the storms and I'll be able to stand next to Shaun, someone who emulated standing firm despite the winds.
Until then, Stormy skies and cross-winds my love.
Missing you...