Three weeks after we returned home, a large package arrived.
Mike had been too weak to attend school that morning. He lay beneath his favorite blanket on the couch while Stella opened the box.
Inside was a handmade scrapbook covered in navy cloth.
A paper airplane had been stitched onto the front.
Every passenger from our flight had received a page.
Their boarding pass was attached beside a handwritten message.
One man wrote about the brother he had lost.
The teenager who had cried wrote:
I get panic attacks on planes. Today I forgot to be afraid because I was watching you wave.
We turned page after page.
Some messages were long.
Others contained only one sentence.
Thank you for reminding me to imagine somewhere better.
Near the end, we found Captain Harris’s page. Beside his boarding pass, he had written:
Pilots are taught to trust instruments when clouds hide the horizon. Children like you remind us to trust hope for the same reason.
Mike traced the words with one finger.
Then Stella turned to the last page.
Beneath a clear protective sheet rested a crayon drawing.
The paper was creased. The airplane had one oversized wing and three floating windows.
It was Mike’s original boarding pass.
The one he had drawn for Nolan.
A nurse had kept it after Nolan completed treatment and went home.
Underneath were the words:
Hope sometimes arrives before the plane does.
Mike studied the picture for a long time.
His fingers rested against the plastic covering.
“Dad?”
“Yeah, buddy?”
“I thought I was helping Nolan pretend.” His voice had become softer in recent weeks. “I didn’t know he was helping me believe we’d all get there someday.”
I moved closer and sat beside him.
Stella lowered herself onto his other side.
We gathered around our son while the open scrapbook rested across our knees.
—
Mike died that winter, six months after our flight.
On his final afternoon, snow covered the backyard and blurred the outline of the soccer goal.
I sat beside his bed, holding the crayon boarding pass.
His breathing had grown shallow.
“Where are we going?” I asked.
Mike opened his eyes slightly.
“Somewhere better.”
I placed the pass inside his hand.
My son’s final flight ended in California.
The one he gave away is still taking off.
