Thoughts On Mortality
June 10, 2012
Captain Mike Kelly’s wife called me today to tell me that Mike suffered a “cardiac event” a week or so ago and has been in a coma ever since. With no hope of him recovering, his wishes have been followed, and he has been disconnected from life support. He is still breathing, but they don’t expect him to last for more than a day or so. In reality, I suppose the fine person who was my friend is gone already and I am deeply saddened by that realization.
Mike and I met in 1966, when we were in the same Army Basic Training Company, at Fort Benning, Georgia. Author Richard Bach once wrote, in “ILLUSIONS, the adventures of a reluctant Messiah,” the following words; “Your friends will know you better in the first minute you meet than your acquaintances will know you in a thousand years.”
Mike and I hit it off immediately, both being, we thought, smarter than most of the other soldiers in our unit. We shared a common delight in machinery and technical matters. One memorable comment from a soldier in our unit was, “If you ask Kelly what time it is, he will tell you how to build a watch.” Mike’s driving ambition, even then, was to become an Army “fixed-wing” pilot, as opposed to a helicopter pilot, in spite of having a small degree of color-blindness. At that time, his chances of becoming any kind of Army pilot looked smaller than hopeless.
Mike’s parents lived relatively near Fort Benning, on the outskirts of Atlanta. When we had a much-anticipated 24-hour pass on a weekend, he took me with him to his family’s home, and I was welcomed by his parents and sisters, and by his fiancée, Linda Faye. For years afterward, when I was passing by, on my way from Miami to Indianapolis, I would stop at the parents’ home, a few blocks from I-75, and leave an avocado or some other message from Florida in their mailbox, even if it was 2 AM when I was driving by.
In the days after the beginning of Basic Training, both Mike and I were offered a chance to attend officer candidate school. We went first to Advanced Infantry Training at Fort McClellan, Alabama, where were trained to fight as enlisted infantrymen, and then he went off to Fort Gordon, Georgia, to Army Signal Corps OCS, and I went to Fort Belvoir, Virginia, to Army Corps of Engineers OCS. After OCS, I went to Thailand, to build roads and bridges and airfields and Thai Army training areas, and I lost track of Mike for a couple of years.
Mike had not wasted his time in the Signal Corps, however. When he eventually was assigned to a Signal Site in Turkey, he used that opportunity to send his personnel officer a long series of applications for fixed-wing flight school. There were many denials of his applications, but he persevered and eventually got what he was seeking.
The next time our paths crossed, he was in primary flight school at Fort Stewart, Georgia. I visited him and Linda Faye there and heard about his adventures. The next time we got together was while he was in multi-engine flight school, at Fort Rucker, Alabama, and living with his wife near the base. I borrowed one of his uniforms and spent one enjoyable afternoon with him and one of his instructors, boring holes in clouds in real, can’t-see-the wingtips, IFR conditions, in a T-42 (Beech Baron) trainer.
We didn’t see one another again for a couple more years. He was busy, flying Army airplanes at various places around the world, and I was busy trying to get over a painful divorce and to reorganize my life. His military flying had included at least one, and maybe more tours in Vietnam, flying airborne electronic reconnaissance and I don’t know what other kinds of missions in U-21 (Beech King Air) and other aircraft. Some time around the end of the Vietnam conflict, CPT Mike got riffed and became a civilian again. While Mike got out of the Army as a Captain, and went back to school, I stayed in the Army Reserves for many more years. When I visited, he would joke with me, salute and call me “Sir,” as if he needed to.
The next time we got back together, Mike had moved to a home near Gastonia, North Carolina, and was flying a Cessna 170 he had acquired. He was, without question, the best pilot with whom I have ever flown. His flight procedures were careful, systematic, and precise. He would roll out of each turn exactly on course and on altitude, at the correct airspeed, every time.
Mike and I shared a love of flying and airplanes, and a strong belief that the Constitutionally-protected “right to bear arms” is a key element to the stability that has allowed the United States of America to be strong for over 200 years, while other governments have suffered repeated failures.
In other ways, we had widely divergent views. Mike was a very conservative right-winger, and I, by contrast, am a progressive liberal. Our e-mails were frequently to discuss our different views on politics. When his first wife became ill, then died of cancer, I hoped that our e-mails helped him get his mind off of the pain of his wife’s disease. Regardless of how much we disagreed on politics, I never questioned Mike’s love of America, or his patriotism. He saw the world through his own lens, which was as it should be. I respected that. We each had our “different drummer.”
Army Captain Jay Michael Kelly was one of my best friends, and I am deeply sorry to learn about his imminent demise.
This situation compels me to say that we take our friends far too casually, and don’t tell them often enough how much they mean to us.
There are many ways to tell how successful one has been in this life. One way is to measure the person’s wealth, money, land, or toys. Both Mike and I had lots of toys. There is a common expression in the general aviation community, “The one who dies with the most toys, wins.” That is cute, but untrue. It is our friends and valued family members who make our lives worth living, and by whom we should judge our own lives.
These are the important questions about our friends: How do we treat them? Do we tell them how much they mean to us, how important their lives are to our life? How often do we tell them?
My deep regret on receiving the news that we are losing Mike Kelly is not just the news of his final, fatal illness. It is that I failed to tell him often enough how much I valued his friendship.
I get older, and as I’ll be 70 soon, I am beginning to be more aware of my own mortality. Two years ago, I attended the 50-year reunion of my high school class and learned that many of those with whom I went to school are no longer alive. I don’t much like that idea, but haven’t figured out any way around it.
I try to enjoy every day, no matter what I am doing, and have had that attitude since at least 1966 at Fort Benning, when our drill sergeants were trying to make us miserable, my flat feet were extremely painful, and I was nevertheless enjoying the beautiful scenery of southwest Georgia and the valley of the Chattahoochee River.
And I am going to keep on, as long as possible, enjoying each day to the maximum amount possible, and telling my friends how much they mean to me. Richard Bach also wrote, in the same book, “The bond that links your true family is not one of blood, but of respect and joy in each other's life. Rarely do members of one family grow up under the same roof.”
Anyway, if you are one of my friends, or part of my family, please know that you are very important to me. If I haven’t said so recently, please forgive me for that, but don’t forget.
I am not a religious person. But there are great teachings in many religions, not the least of which are the lessons of Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount. He said, and I am paraphrasing, “Love your enemies.” It is easy to love one’s friends, but the test is whether you truly love your enemies.
Well, I try to follow that instruction, and if I am capable of loving my enemies, then the emotion I feel for my friends is certainly much more profound. To each of my friends and family members, and to Mike Kelly, wherever you are, I send you every best wish for the best possible life and the most painless death.
