Chasing Memories

By Jerry Mack Grubbs

As each January fades into February I find time to push the plane out of the hangar, blow the winter cobwebs out of the exhaust pipes and fly over to Fremont Island for a rendezvous with the old memories that remind me of my visit to that island in 2004. At the time I didn’t know I was going to be invited to spend the night so I didn’t take along my pajamas and toothbrush. It proved to be the longest, coldest night of my life and one I do not wish to repeat. However, it is also a night that taught me a lot about myself. Just thinking about that night reminds me of a statement that Neal A. Maxwell made after a bout with cancer. Paraphrasing his words, “It humbled me and softened me for which I am eternally grateful but I don’t kneel by my bed at night and pray to relive the experience.”

The topic of that cold February night came up as I sat in the living room this week and visited with my son. He and a close friend were the ones who came looking for me in the dark of night as they flew over a windswept Great Salt Lake. Because of the winter conditions, snow covered landing strip and moonless night, they were not able to rescue me but they provided me with all that I had asked for. I did not want the ones I love to spend the night with no knowledge of my condition or whereabouts. I breathed a huge sigh of relief as the plane circling overhead flew away carrying information that I was uninjured and at least acting rational.

The following day I shoveled snow until I only had thirty minutes of daylight left to attempt a takeoff. During the day my sons along with two dear friends made several trips to the island and air dropped supplies, snow shovel, and whatever else they thought I might need. At a prearranged time they returned and were circling overhead just incase I crashed on takeoff and needed a rescue team sent in by helicopter.

Now, four years later, I still have a small shutter pass through me as I reflect on the events that followed. I have often wished that each and every person on this earth could have a similar experience occur in their individual lives. Coming from my radio headphones, I heard the words, “We just witnessed a miracle.” My sons and friends in the plane circling overhead saw and expressed into the radio microphone what I was experiencing first hand. The miracle wasn’t born on the wings of my flying skill but on wind that came from seemingly nowhere to lift my little plane out of the icy grasp of the winter snow. The plane didn’t have enough forward motion to be flying but it was flying. Even before I had time to scan the aircraft instruments and assure myself I wasn’t hallucinating, I was thinking of the song by Bette Midler called, “Wind Beneath My Wings.”

Once in a while we are blessed to view a miracle or at least witness an event that seems to defy our understanding. But in reality there are miracles occurring each and every day of our lives. Life itself is a miracle. The recuperative powers of the physical body are miracles. The ability our minds have of capturing and storing events of the past into memory is a miracle. Today I am thankful for the miracle that I can close my eyes and be transported back to that time and place, hear the music in my head and feel the wind beneath my wings once more.

I am grateful that my miracle on Fremont Island came on the one year anniversary of my father-in-law’s passing. I have often wondered if he had anything to do with the wind beneath my wings that cold February day in 2004. It was a great blessing to have him in our home during the last years of his life. It was a cold wintry day in February when we stood by his open grave and said our last earthly goodbyes. And it was a cold windy day just one year later when someone stirred the wind beneath my wings. Regardless of what people say about miracles, the five pilots on and circling above Fremont Island that day witnessed one. I haven’t tried to understand why or how but I am very grateful. Isn’t that what miracles are all about . . . helping us learn to have a grateful heart?