She flies with me if we're going somewhere she wants to go. But 90% of
the time if I'm just going for the sake of flying, she doesn't want to go.
I used to drag her along, and she'd read a book or fall asleep.

Hey, that's the highest compliment a passenger can pay you.

(They can't sleep if they're terrified... ;-)

I have dealt with this fear from many angles. In fact, now it is ME
who is scared, when my only son goes up for a lesson, so the shoe is
truly on the other foot.

With my wife, Mary, the best thing I could have done was to get her
interested in flying. Once SHE had "the bug", there was no way she
could sit on the ground and worry -- she was right there with me.
This, of course, doesn't solve the very real problem of risk and risk
avoidance that comes with flying -- but it makes our marriage more
comfortable.

Our families have always been worried about us flying, especially when
we fly while our kids are in school. I must admit that Mary and I had
long, involved discussions over the wisdom of this practice (required
because our "weekends" are Wed/Thu, so if we want to fly it's going to
be during their school day), and it's not always been easy to
discuss.

Our "worst case scenario" is imagining what would happen to our kids
if we simply went up on a Wednesday and didn't come back. None of
our family lives in Iowa, so the kids would be on their own throughout
the ordeal that would inevitably follow an accident -- and this is
simply not something any parent would wish on their kids.

This fear has faded somewhat, now that our kids are teenagers. When
they were in elementary school, Mary was VERY uncomfortable flying
without them (for some reason it's okay WITH them, which is pretty
odd, if you analyze it too much), because of the awful prospect of
them waiting a day or two for relatives to arrive.

On the plus side, this fear has made us VERY meticulous and careful
pilots. Preflights are NEVER omitted, fuel tanks are ALWAYS filled,
gas is ALWAYS tested, maintenance is ALWAYS done. Still, we all know
that "**** happens", and we could become statistics at some point.

I always fall back on two facts that comfort me:

1. You can either live, or wait to die. It's up to you.

2. Mary and I could be killed driving on the highway any day of the
week.

Life is a terminal condition. No one is getting off of this planet
alive. It's up to each of us to make the best of our time here, and
-- in my world -- that means flying.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"