by Donald Hancock

Created on: July 26, 2011

A holding pattern

The incident that I am about to relate might be a bit confusing since you are likely not familiar with the locations that I am going to mention. So, if I seem to give too much detail it is simply my attempt to make the picture clear to you.

Our son, Dean, lives in Miami and comes home every Christmas to Augusta, Georgia (USA) – a distance of about 600 miles. In the past, it has been much more expensive to fly into Augusta than to some other cities like Atlanta or Savannah. So people have experimented with driving to Atlanta (about 125 miles from Augusta) or Savannah (about 120 miles) to begin or end their air journey. Most people who have tried doing that have given up the practice because it just was not practical. After the incident that I am going to relate, we gave it up too!

My son was flying on a quick, direct flight from Miami to Savannah. It would take him about two hours. Our drive to meet him in Savannah would take about the same amount of time. He was to arrive at 4:30 in Savannah and we would have a nice meal and return to Augusta. At 4:00 we were there with bells on. Shortly after we arrived at the airport it began to rain. It was not just a heavy rain, it was a “gulley washer”! By 4:30 the flight board was reading: “Flight 637 from Miami - delayed because of weather”. At 5:00 it still said, “delayed”. At 5:30 I went to talk with the nice lady at the desk to ask when she expected the flight to arrive. She said, “Oh, it's here! It's up there in a 'holding pattern' because the weather here is too bad to attempt a landing!”

At 6:00 I asked again – still in a “holding pattern”! Dean finally landed at 7:00 – 2 and a half hours in a “holding pattern”. During the holding pattern, the plane had run low on fuel and so it flew to Augusta to refuel and then flew back to Savannah. While the plane was in Augusta, Dean asked to be let off to take a taxi home, but the pilot refused.

Now, I told you about this incident to illustrate what I think is true of we who are called “Senior Citizens”. When I think about the physical condition of so many of my friends – heart troubles, surgeries, many with disabilities, others recently passed – it occurs to me that we are all in a holding pattern of sorts. Someone said, in our Sunday School Department, that there is no place for our department to “promote to” except to our “final

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