Dead Men Not Talking: An Aviator’s Journey Through the Terminals of Life
by This piece is based on my observations of the average American male during forty years as a professional road warrior. I have also worked with over two thousand men as a certified leader of an adult men’s rite of passage and my hope is that my writing will open men’s eyes and hearts to how we isolate, deny our feelings and support our early demise.
Four guys at breakfast, all at the same table, each reading a newspaper; their backs turned away from each other as if they were acting out a mutual grudge or had been offended by the mere presence of one another; oblivious to anything but the bright colors of the USA Today weather map and the latest football scores.
In my job as a pilot for a large fractional jet company (think time share in corporate jets) and a retired airline captain, in addition to spending half my life in a cockpit, I spend the other half in hotels and restaurants. So I’m sitting there, waiting for my breakfast, thinking,
“Man, this looks way too familiar!”
“Johnny, we never knew ya…”
Too many of us guys are “making a dying” instead of a living. We’re running a race of loneliness, heartache, frustration and a possible early demise with the finish line nowhere in sight. What triggered this article was an e-mail notice two days earlier of a friend’s death on Christmas morning. 2008. In spite of regular attendance at our local church, John was a self-admitted lonely man who never recovered from a painful divorce a few years ago.
We often saw each other at a Sunday church service; he usually sat alone in a pew, off to the side and toward the back of the church. I would invite him to sit with me but he was more comfortable, familiar more likely, being alone. He always had sort of a twisted smile on his face; it was the kind that hid a dump truck full of pain.
If I didn’t know better, I would have thought he was doing well – “Fine!” – as most men respond when asked how they’re doing or what they’re feeling. Either that or “Man, I’m really busy.” Last time I checked, “fine” or “busy” weren’t feelings.
I often wondered how long John would last, since most times I saw him he had booze on his breath. A “dead man not talking” giveaway!
Occasionally I would join him for dinner or a drink at one of the local restaurants; usually he was half in the bag by the time I got there, although to the untrained eye he always seemed to be navigating well enough. He’d obviously had a lot of practice.
Reflections in a Dusky Mirror…
The painful realization that I had been one of the “dead men not talking” hit me recently like a “whap up’side the head.” Until recently, I had been struggling to avoid, yet seemed inexorably drawn into, a maelstrom of solitude and loneliness because of the habits I had built over the years. I realized, for much of my life, I have too often “flown solo.” And there are thousands – no, millions – of us guys out there, paddling furiously upstream in similar, perforated lifeboats. We often stop to frantically bail but the water seems to fill the boat faster than we can bail.
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