I touched the face of God

High Flight by John Gillespie Magee Jr. 1941

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds - and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of - wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov’ing there
I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air.
Up, up the long delirious burning blue
I’ve topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or even eagle flew -
And, while with silent lifting mind I’ve trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space
Put out my hand and touched the face of God

John Gillespie Magee Jr was a 19 year old fighter pilot. He wrote this and mailed it to his father in the United States. Three months later, on 11 December 1941, he was killed in a mid-air collision over England. This is one of aviation’s most famous and probably most quoted poems.

Mum passed away in September 1994 and my brother Colin (who lives and breathes aviation) chose the words to be inscribed on her memorial. It reads
“I have slipped the surly bonds of earth and touched the face of God”

I loved those words. I knew they were from a poem but I hadn’t read the whole poem and didn’t know the background of the poet or the circumstances under which he wrote it. At that time, having watched Mum physically waste away and shrink with the pain that was her daily companion from the surgery in March 1994 to the day of her passing I rejoiced tearfully that she had finally slipped the surly bonds of earth believing that she had surely touched the face of God.

Today as I read the whole poem it seems to me that it applies to Mum in her life as much as it reflected the freedom , the exhilaration, the pure, unadulterated and beautiful immensity of the skies experienced by the young pilot who felt that he could touch the face of God.

Mum wasn’t a pilot. She was quiet, shy to the point of being described as retiring, very private and slow to warm up to new people. She was generous and had a wicked sense of humour which she shared with Dad and Colin and me. She could giggle like a schoolgirl until the cancer robbed her of that. Yet I’ve known, without actually thinking about it, that Mum had a hidden facet. She loved reading, was ever ready to travel and had a deep, deep appreciation of the wonders of creation. Little wonder that her favourite countries were Switzerland with majestic Alps and Hawaii with swaying palms and clear waters.

Mum was a reader. She didn’t have many books but there was always one near her pillow. She subscribed to Reader’s Digest and the (UK) Women’s Weekly. She had issues dating back to the 1950s. She probably re-read them repeatedly and let her imagination take her where the constraints of  finance and culture would not. A free spirit that within her whirled and swirled and soared so that when the time came she did not hesitate to put out her hand and touch the face of God.