Goodbye Captain Bob

 

Have you ever had something weighing on your mind and it required action on your part to make it go away? Are you like me, with a busy everyday and think I’ll take care of it after I do this which turns into tomorrow followed by a whole slew of days filled with inaction on the matter? It’s a sloppy way to do things, yet understandable in today’s hurried world. Yet still, when I look in the mirror, shame shame.

For me, this something wasn’t a thing, it was a person, a far-flung friend of mine, Captain Bob. I made his acquittance in the beginning of 2011 when he sent me an email. He was a reader of my blog, and I used to be a writer of a blog. (I’m trying to be a writer of a blog again.) He asked what kind of airplane I flew and he told me what kind of airplane he flew. I answered him promptly, and we have been friends ever since. 

Bob was a cool cat. Apparently, in his early days he was in the trucking industry and hence, enjoyed reading about my exploits on the road. Luckily, he had the good sense to bid the road farewell and choose aviation as his career. Captain Bob eventually found himself a senior captain for Kimberly Clark. They have some real nice jets and he flew them all over the world.

What really made Captain Bob cool was at the end of the day he was a grass roots aviator and he truly was an ambassador for general aviation. I mean, he befriended me and some pilots in my local community are not so quick to do that. (I know...I’m me and I can halfway understand why..) Growing up around airplanes, I had thought anytime you met another pilot here or there, they were instantly a friend. While I am blessed with many pilot friends, I grew to understand that that’s not how it always works, and that’s okay. Turns out pilots are just people. Fiddlesticks.

But Captain Bob was who I always imagined pilots to be, and still want them all to be- instant friends, and that we were. After our email exchange, we connected on Facebook and we were always fans of each other. Captain Bob wanted to meet in person at the Sun-n-Fun Fly In down in Lakeland, Florida and as luck would have it, my dad took me along to the show in his Mooney a few years ago. Me and Captain Bob met for a beer or two and caught up in real life. I was grateful for that opportunity, yet once was not enough for Captain Bob. Sometimes I would post something on Facebook, completely unrelated to aviation, and he’d slide into the comments with something like, “Sun-n-Fun is coming up, time to start planning” or “Are you coming to Oshkosh this year?” Sadly, I was unable to make either event since. I did travel to his home state of Texas in April of this year to visit another friend and took the time to see how long the drive would be to go see him. It was about five hours by car so I figured that would be too far. I should have thought that through better.

One thing you notice about a friend is when they’re not around. I started to notice he never commented on any of my posts and I hadn’t seen much or heard anything from him. It was these “what the heck” moments that put him on my mind, and he stayed there for far too long. Finally, a few weeks ago, at the same truck stop where, oddly enough, I am  writing from tonight, I was inside taking a shower and I thought, “I gotta find out what’s up with Captain Bob.” When I got back to my RV, I pulled out my phone and sent him a text. Using my normal humor, I wrote, “Hi Captain Bob. I haven’t heard from you in years, how are you doing?” Then I waited.

Since I was waiting with my phone in my hand, I opened Facebook and went to his page to see if I missed some posts from him. I was shocked to see one post, then another, people talking of his sudden and unexpected passing. No. This can’t be real. I found his obituary online and the sadness became real. I threw my phone somewhere off and to the right and simply stared out the window. This was happening within a week of unexpectedly losing another good friend and for a moment it was all too much. No goodbyes are the worst. As I looked out the window everything and everyone appeared too sharp, too rough, too three dimensional. We have to ride those moments out while silently thinking to ourselves repeatedly, “What the fuck?”

Eventually the shock wanes into simple sadness and on we go, pack our suitcase with memories and soldier on forward. It’s our only choice, and never easy or pleasant.

I regret not checking in with Captain Bob earlier, but in reading the roadmap with good friends, it’s not always necessary. In my case, checking in sooner would have allowed me to mourn sooner. No difference to me- I didn’t want to mourn at all. But I felt it necessary to share this experience of loss as reminder to all of us to check in more and do more with our friends. Drive five hours to see someone, make a trip across several states when invited to do so. One day they’ll have all been worth the effort and we can close the book of each other with less regrets and more happy chapters.

Next summer I am actually planning to make the trek to Oshkosh, Wisconsin for the greatest Fly-in the world knows. Captain Bob won’t be asking me if I am going, but I know he’ll be there with all of us who truly love aviation. He’ll fly with us when we fly and we’ll see him in the sky when we look up from the ground. And, just as this blog brought us together, tonight I use it to bid him farewell.

Sorry it took so long Captain Bob, but you surely understand better than anyone how hurried life can be, and you also surely knew that I would not let you take off without me waving you off.

Goodbye Captain Bob, thanks for being my friend.

Blue skies and tailwinds.