It sounds kind of sad, but it's true. Recent events in my family have shown me what can happen when a lifetime of failures catches up to you: how your own children refuse to pick up the phone when they see it's you calling, how the one grandson who always looked up to you with almost childish adoration even as he grew into manhood can no longer stand to look you in the eye, how it feels to get left behind because you're too stubborn to pick up your gaze and look ahead.

My dad said the saddest thing to me last night. When I was little, I always associated my grandfather with planes. Everyone around him knew of his intense love of them, and he spent lots of money and time on his model airplanes. every time I visited his many homes over the years the planes were always there--some complete, with their paint slightly dusted-over, waiting for their chance to take to the skies; others lay in pieces strewn throughout the house, waiting to be repaired or finished so that they too could someday take flight. But my dad, my wonderful loving father, told me last night without a hint or remorse that the planes were gone, lost because of selfishness and stupidity. And I sit here and write and wonder: what happened to flying? What happened to those carefree dreams? They're gone. Gone. Flown away like a flock of birds headed for sunnier skies.

If I am asked to speak at my grandfather's funeral after his time here on earth has reached its end, I won't speak of his successes or his failures--those are his to keep, his to bear well beyond the grave. I don't even think that I'll speak of what he meant to me or the people who loved him the most. No, I will speak of his airplanes, once sturdy and strong, now lost and forgotten, and how one man desperately wanted to fly. Such a perfect metaphor for his life.

I don't want to know this feeling for myself. I want keep my silly dreams and wrap them around myself like a blanket so that we cannot be separated, my dreams and I. I've seen so many lose their dreams to the dredge of time. And that is why I want to die before I grow old. Because then maybe, maybe I won't have to watch my dreams die before me and my wings will never touch the ground.