COMMENTARY: Between Fear and Flight: A Mother’s Trust in the Sky

Christiana Best-Giacomini, Ph.D.

January 30, 2026

I love traveling, and I have been all over the world, from South Africa to Europe to the Caribbean. But traveling with your son as the pilot of a small plane is something entirely different. It is not just a journey through air and space; it is a journey through trust, fear, and the long arc of motherhood.

When my son was a child, he dreamed of becoming a pilot. He spoke about airplanes with a quiet intensity, the way children do when something has truly captured their imagination. As a young adult, he began learning to fly while in college and earned his private pilot’s license. Then, like many early dreams, it seemed to fade. While still in school, he worked part-time at the airport, and after graduation, he moved into management. For nearly ten years, he built a steady career, proud of his responsibilities and progress, while his dream of flying was placed gently but firmly on the back burner. I assumed that chapter of his life had closed.

Recently, however, he returned to the sky. For the past five months, he has been taking lessons again, and he told me he wanted to make his old dream a reality. As his mother, I supported him wholeheartedly. I told him, “Whatever I can do to help, I will.” What he wanted most, he said, was for me to take a flight with him.

I love my son deeply. He is my only child, and I would take a bullet for him. But flying in a small aircraft the size of a Cessna is not something that comes naturally to me. Many family members, including my son’s cousins and my husband, had already flown with him. I am cut from a different cloth. I need to be on solid ground. That is where I feel safest. The night before the flight, my sleep was restless. I kept imagining the tiny plane, the wide sky, and all the things that could go wrong. Loving a child means learning how to live with vulnerability, and that night I felt it in every breath.

I have flown many times in my life, sometimes once or twice a year, but always on large commercial planes with two pilots and plenty of space. My son’s plane is very small, and he is the only pilot. At six feet tall, his knees nearly touch the steering wheel. There is no such thing as extra room. Still, after weeks of hesitation, I knew I had to step beyond my comfort zone. I wanted my son to know that I trusted him, even when fear whispered otherwise. So, for his birthday, I agreed to go up with him.

On the evening of January 12, he called to tell me he was on his way to pick me up for our flight. We would take off from Robertson Airport in Plainville, Connecticut, fly to White Plains, New York, land, then continue down the Hudson River over lower Westchester, the Bronx, Manhattan, and to the Statue of Liberty before returning home. I knew I could not back out this time, even though my nerves were already churning. As we climbed into the plane, the steady hum of the engine felt both reassuring and ominous, a reminder that we were leaving the safety of the ground behind.

For the first twenty minutes in the air, I was quiet, silently praying for us to get there and back safely. My hands were clasped in my lap, and every small movement of the plane made my heart skip. Gradually, I began to relax. When we landed in White Plains, I asked if we could return to Connecticut instead of continuing to New York City. He answered with a firm no, followed by a reassuring statement, “Mom, trust the process,” with the calm confidence of someone who knows exactly what he is doing. I resumed my quiet prayer vigil, determined to be present for him even as fear lingered.

As we entered the city airspace, I was suddenly transported back to my first flight to New York City when I was a teenager from Grenada. I had never seen so many lights, so much life packed into one place. Back then, the city felt like a promise. Now, flying above it with my son at the controls, it felt like a testament to how far we had both come. Brandon flew down the Hutchinson River, with New Jersey on one side of the plane and Westchester and New York City on the other. I began taking photos with my phone, and little by little, my body relaxed, my fear giving way to awe.

We circled the Statue of Liberty twice. From above, she looked smaller than I imagined, yet still powerful and steady. I watched my son as he spoke with air traffic control and the FAA, their words sounding like a foreign language to me. But I could see his focus, his confidence, and his calm. This was not a boy playing at a dream. This was a man who had reclaimed it.

Somewhere between the river, the lights of the city, and my son’s steady hands on the controls, I realized that I was no longer just afraid. I was proud. I have always loved the man my son has grown into, but watching him fly that plane with such skill, discipline, and quiet assurance was something altogether different. In that seat beside him, I was not only his mother. I was his witness, suspended in the sky, learning once again what it means to trust, to let go, and to believe in the wings we give our children.

(Dr Christiana Best is an Associate Professor at the University of Saint Joseph, Connecticut)

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