by Brenda Reeves

Created on: March 21, 2009

The 1995 movie, French kiss, starring Meg Ryan and Timothy Hutton, opens with Kate (Ryan) gripping the armrests of her airplane seat repeating, "I'm going to die! I'm going to die! I'm going to die!" I laughed, leaned over and whispered to my friend, "That's me." We soon learned that Kate was taking part in a simulated flight as part of a therapy session to get over her fear of flying. The fear of flying ranks third on the top ten phobia list. Ask anyone if they like to fly and you will most likely get a "no".

My 37 year old father and 13 year old brother were killed in an airplane accident on August 22, 1958, the day after my younger brother's fourth birthday, and the day before my ninth birthday. In spite of this of tragedy, my mother, brother, and I, continued to fly from California to Kentucky to visit my grandparents every summer. We even flew on August 22nd a few times. In my child's mind I found comfort in believing the pilot, my mother, and God weren't going to let us die. I hadn't any knowledge of statistics at the time, but I knew the probability just wasn't there.

Fast forward ten years, and I'm married with a baby. My grandparents in Kentucky wanted us to pay them a visit. To this day, it saddens me that I didn't accept the invitation. I loved my grandparents, and they loved me. They would have been thrilled to see their great-grandchild. I gave some flimsy excuse, but the real reason was I had become afraid of flying. No longer did I feel the comfort of believing everything would be all right. The reality that in certain situations nobody has control took its place.

I managed to avoid the necessity to fly for 16 more years. Then I decided to take my 13 year old son and 10 year old daughter to Kentucky to visit my mother and aunts. Unfortunately, both of my grandparents were gone but , my fear of flying was alive and well. I decided to grit my teeth and put on a face of fearlessness for that flight The kids sat across the aisle from me enjoying their first plane ride unaware their mother's heart was tied in a knot. The flight attendant came down the aisle offering boxed snacks. I refused, because I was too terrified to eat. After their snacks, the children fell asleep for twenty minutes thereby missing the worst storm I've ever experienced on a flight to this day. Thunder clapped, lightening flashed and to the right of me, starting at the front of the plane, window shades began falling like a row of dominoes. This was a sure sign in my mind that everyone

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