A thirty-something father takes his two young daughters out for a ride in his single-engine airplane on a lovely Florida afternoon. All is well. His girls understand what he must do: pre-flight checks, plotting his course with maps, talking on the radio, etc. They love flying with their dad and he loves flying with them.

Eventually the pilot sees storm clouds. He tries to navigate around them, but he can’t. He hears there are tornadoes close by – he has to land, and soon! His whole body strains with the effort to keep the plane under his control, finally landing at a small runway and rushing the girls inside the hangar.

His daughters are grinning. They have no concept of danger. All they can say is, “That was like a roller-coaster! Let’s do it again, Daddy!”

Years later, the father is now a grandfather. His arms ache from pushing his granddaughters on the swings over and over again. These two little girls can’t get high enough, fast enough. Their delighted shrieks slow as the man stops sending them into the air. They dismount and grab his hands, echoing the sentiment their mother and aunt expressed all those years ago.

“Papa, that was weehaw! THAT was weehaw!”

Whether we’re white-knuckling it through a sudden and unexpected storm or we are happily gliding along a chosen trajectory, we must remember that life is messy. Life is full of the unexpected. Life is hilarious, heartbreaking and somehow both at once. Life, well…

Life is Weehaw.