 In memoriam ...
Today is a very difficult day for me. One year ago, 12 April 2003, one of my closest friends died. Shaun Michael Bohrer was killed in a crash while flight instructing near Dansville, New York. He was 22. I had known him since age 8. Shaun was an Embry-Riddle graduate, a Continental Airlines and Atlantic Coast Airlines intern, a flight instructor, a lover of music, and the best friend a guy could ever want. Even though you've left this life, you'll always fly with me, my friend ...
The following poem was read at his funeral, and I want to share it here.
IMPRESSIONS OF A PILOT
Flight is freedom in it's purest form,
to dance with the clouds which follow a storm;
to roll and glide, to wheel and spin;
To feel the joy that swells within;
To leave the earth with its troubles and fly,
And know the warmth of a clear spring sky;
Then back to earth at the end of the day,
released from the tensions which melted away.
Should my end come while I am in flight,
Whether brightest day or darkest night;
Spare me your pity and shrug off the pain,
Secure in the knowledge that I'd do it again;
For each of us is created to die,
And within me I know,
I was born to fly.
-- Gary Claud Stokor
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