[ IP ] Fight or Flight

I took Jonas in as a child, having found him abandoned in the woods, starving and freezing. Taking him into my charge, I brought him home and nursed him back to health, hoping that I would find his parents or someone else who would claim him as their own. I was apparently too slow in my search, unable to find a suitable place for him before he imprinted upon me. I had fallen for the child and vowed then and there to fill the role of his protector and parent myself. 
 
 Having reared him to maturity, I had developed a deep bond with him that he reciprocated warmly, and through this bond, I knew that I had done well, that I had raised him right. 
 
 However, there was a part of him that, for the longest time, I had trouble trying to connect with. Although he considered me his father, and loved me as such, our fundamental differences often left him feeling inferior, as if his natural inabilities made him unworthy of my attention. He would often watch me with eyes full of awe and sorrow, and every time I glanced back and saw those eyes, I died a little bit on the inside. No good parent would be content watching their child in silent despair, and I was no exception. 
 
 Eventually, I came across the solution to my boy's sorrow in an abandoned barn near the woods I found him in as a child. Upon my discovery, I brought him to the barn, gestured inside, and asked him what he thought of it. Upon realizing what it was, his face brightened with wonder, and I knew that I had found something good. 
 
 Providing him with all of the parts, tools, and manuals I could find, I assisted him as he learned the ins and outs fo the machine, working day and night to dismantle, assemble, tune, and calibrate its various moving parts until, at last, he was ready to take off. 
 
 Firing up what he referred to as the `` Pratt-Whitney engine'', he sped across the field and into the air as I sat, perched atop the barn, for once tilting my head up to watch him soar. After a moment of prideful revelry in the sight, I outstretched my wings and beat them furiously in order to join him in the clouds. 
 
 Yelling words of encouragement, I followed him as he sliced through the air, making banks and turns and rolls that I had scarcely believed possible at all, nevermind from such a small, metal contraption. Yet it was possible, and it was happening. My son had joined me in the sky. And I could not have been prouder. 
 
 There is no greater joy than that of a parent who has enabled their child to find their own joy.
