There is a slogan I drew up as marketing officer for my gliding club, “Flight – the greatest gift”. We took Peter, just this last Christmas 2008, for a glider flight, on a very cold, but sunny Saturday. As he grabbed the controls, he smiled and his eyes sharpened, the youthful Spitfire Pilot, in his element once more ... it now seems that this was so well timed, so apt ... so I wrote this little verse. (apologies to Clement Clarke Moore.) T'was a day, after Christmas, and out on the runway an old fighter was stirring, squeezed under the canopy, arthritis and deafness could not keep him down parachute strapped, walking sticks on the ground, Silver hair now framed a 16 year-old's smile his soul in its element, no pain for a while, and skypilot found lift ...through the single small cloud an angel surged upward, this onlooker bowed, Great joy in his flying, great gifts from his life, His spirit ...soars now, free of bodily strife.