Musings: Landing with a full heart

Every week or two, for months on end, they traded places, ensuring Lexi was never alone.

Republic is a rural town 185 miles northeast of Seattle, nestled in a small valley not far from the Canadian border. By car, the drive is nearly 300 miles and some five and a half hours. The nearest airport with commercial service is a two-and-a-half-hour drive. In a Cessna 182, the town and city are less than two hours apart, even when flying out of the way to stick to charted instrument crossings over the Cascade Mountains that divide western and eastern Washington.

I had wanted to pick up this roundtrip flight before, but my schedule or the weather always seemed to get in the way. This time, everything looked good. It was a Monday in late September when I was assigned the mission, and we were set to fly on Friday morning. Then the changes came along.

Brian mentioned that he needed to be in Wilbur, 70 miles and a two-hour drive due south of Republic, to take care of some farm business. Wilbur has a small airport I’d passed many times on flights to Spokane. Would it be possible to stop there and save the drive from Republic? No problem. Then another request: Lexi was improving and wanted to get out of the hospital for a few hours. Could she come along for the whole flight? Absolutely! And one more: Could one of Lexi’s friends also fly to Seattle to keep her company for a few days? Again, no problem at all. When Friday’s forecast threatened icy clouds over the mountains, we moved the trip to Thursday afternoon.

Thursday arrived with clear skies—a perfect day to fly. I met Brian and Lexi at my home field in Renton and a few minutes later, we were on our way. Brian got off in Wilbur, I topped off the tanks, and Lexi and I flew up to Republic. Lexi spent much of the flight quietly taking in the desolate landscape below us, but when we spoke, I gained an immense respect for her, a sweet young teenager, remarkably strong and wise beyond her years. She didn’t talk of cancer and hospitals and chemotherapy and transfusions. She focused on the good in life and looking forward to things returning to normal, without a complaint about the difficult hand she had been dealt. She wanted to be with her friends and family and get back to school. To leave the bustle of a big city for the quiet surroundings of rural America and the animals waiting for her at the ranch. She just wanted to be home.

As we descended into Republic and overflew the ranch, Lexi’s eyes lit up and she began to point out the landmarks she recognized. A few minutes after landing, two trucks pulled up at the sleepy airport that stored more old construction trucks than airplanes. In addition to Kathy and Lexi’s friend, Odeal, her grandparents and other extended family came to say hello, too. Lexi had been in the hospital continuously since before Christmas—more than nine months—and this was much more of a homecoming than I had expected.

After a brief visit full of smiles, hugs, and tears of perhaps both joy and sorrow, it was back to the airplane for the last leg of the day. We took off as the sun was setting, the sky turning black and filling with stars that never appear in the city. With the calming hum of the engine, it wasn’t long before my three passengers—Lexi and Odeal in the back and Kathy up front—were fast asleep.

Kathy awoke as we descended over the western foothills of the Cascades, with the bright lights of Seattle ahead of us. In the hour or so that she’d been asleep, we had traveled a world away from Republic.

I got home that night tired from a long day of flying, but gratified that everything had worked out as planned, and humbled to have been given the opportunity to see a family so valiantly and positively take on adversity. As I entered my last few flights from my paper logbook into my electronic copy, I discovered that shortly before landing back in Renton, I had crossed the 500-hour mark, a personal milestone that would further ensure this would be a flight that I would never forget.

As it happened, this was the last Angel Flight Brian and Kathy would take. Shortly after the flight, Lexi’s condition had improved enough that she was released from the hospital with a hopeful prognosis and allowed to return home. I would have loved for the story to end here. Sadly, after a few months, Lexi’s condition worsened, and a little over a year after our flight, she died at the age of 15, cancer once more taking a precious life far too soon.

When I first signed up to take this mission, I thought I was simply going to fly two parents where they had to go and hopefully make their lives just a bit easier. I never could have imagined how much I would personally gain from the experience as I watched a family navigate such a difficult time with so much love and strength. It’s an experience every pilot should know. Opportunities abound to put flying skills to work for good. As wonderful as it is to land with a full belly after a $100 hamburger, there is no feeling better than landing with a full heart.

In memory of Lexi Rose, 2002-2017.

Jeremy Katzis an aeronautical engineer at Boeing. He has been a pilot with AngelFlight West since 2012 and currently serves as its Washington Wing Leader.