Flight to Heaven by Dale Black

was too much, too soon.
    And it was too lonely.

10
     
    A FUTURE AND A HOPE
     
    The remainder of the fall of 1969 was even lonelier. I had become disillusioned with my friendships, which one by one fell away during that season of my life. I became weary of the well-wishers, the Hallmark-card greetings, the hang-in-there sentiments. I became suspicious of the smiles, the promises to come and see me that never materialized, and the call-me-if-you-need-anything good-byes.
    One friendship, however, didn’t disappoint. I looked forward to time alone with God—reading my Bible, praying, thinking, which I did a lot in our backyard, our suddenly leafless backyard.
    Up till then, I had always been a doer; now I was learning just to be. Not that I really had a choice in the matter. It was as if there had been an untimely frost and the seasons changed overnight. I went from the summertime of my life to the dead of winter without so much as a storm warning.
    Someone once said, I forget who, “In October, when the leaves fall, you can see deeper into the forest.” It’s true. So much foliage had fallen from my branching ambitions, and as a result, I could see deeper into the forest that was my life.
    I didn’t feel I needed to be doing anything—playing among the trees or gathering firewood or trying to find some way of making money out of the forest. I could just be there and rest. It was good. It was part of my restoration.
    Trees need the winter. I never knew that before. They need time to strengthen for the growth they experience in springtime. All that green, pulpy growth has to harden, or the tree would not be able to withstand the seasonal winds that whip against it.
    I had experienced a lot of growth. Now was the time for the energy to be diverted from the branches to the roots. The roots of my faith were going deeper. Much of what was going on with me was going on underground, so to speak, beneath the surface, unseen.
    Growth can be a lonely place, but it is a necessary place.
    That’s what I learned in the fall of ’69, there in my wheelchair, in the backyard with the bare branches—and my Bible.
     
    Initially my parents, as well as my doctor, had not revealed the full extent of my injuries. They told me things like “your ankle is broken” or “your shoulder is dislocated” or “your back is broken in a few places.” But they never went into detail. Later I learned that Dr. Graham had advised my parents not to discuss my injuries with me until I asked. In this way, he believed I would learn of their seriousness as I was emotionally able to handle the information.
    I had been talking about and praying about my physical restoration for several weeks, when my dad sat down with me for a man-to-man talk.
    “You’ve got a lot of work ahead of you, Dale. And you need to understand that it may be years before you’ll be able to function normally, even somewhat normally. You’ll not be able to regain the use of everything, you know. The doctor says you’ll never walk again.”
    I wasn’t prepared for what he said and couldn’t respond.
    He explained, “We didn’t want to tell you everything too soon. You had enough trauma those first few weeks.”
    I don’t know if it was for my benefit or his, but I said, “Don’t worry, Dad. It will all come back. You’ll see. God will restore me to the way I was. And on the anniversary of the crash, I’m going to fly over that monument as pilot in command. With God’s help we’ll do it. He and I are a team now. Just wait, you’ll see.”
    Dad sat back in his chair and said nothing, which was uncharacteristic of him. He had always been a can-do kind of guy, always looking on the bright side. But Dad had been apprehensive about my flying. It wasn’t a career choice he could fully support. And now, after the crash, he could muster no enthusiasm at all. He couldn’t even fake it.
    That was the last time I spoke to him about flying over the monument, the last time I