Sky in My Blood

The roar of the Thunderbirds shook my chest today. Five jets locked together in a diamond, slicing through the sky with only inches to spare. The crowd gasped at the impossibility of it, but me? I felt something different — I felt my mom.

She was the lone woman on a skydiving team of men, and she never tried to blend in. She wore pink, not to prove she was female, but to prove she was a bad ass. Her stage was the open sky, her performance a freefall that turned gravity into art.

And I remember those days — the early 90s — when her world was my world. The airport was our second home. My mom, her teammates, and her lover were always there, always moving with purpose, organizing parachutes, untangling lines, laughing and living loud.

They built me a little loft above the hangar — my own hideout, my own skybox. It had a big old TV (small by their standards, massive by mine), a colorful couch, stacks of movies, books, and toys. I’d sprawl out, half watching cartoons, half watching them — my mom and her crew hauling gear, pulling in planes, packing for the next leap.

That was my childhood view: freedom in motion, discipline wrapped in joy, the sky waiting just outside the hangar door.

When I was five years old, the sky gave me something different. It gave me loss. I heard the words no little girl should ever have to hear — that my mom, my love, my wild skydiver, would not be returning. Excruciating doesn’t even begin to describe it. At five, you don’t know how to name grief, only how to feel the hollow.

But here’s the thing: today, as those five jets screamed across the horizon, I realized something. The sky has never left me. Every boom, every roll, every impossible formation — it’s her. My mom. That tom-boy-in-pink who leapt into blue nothingness with absolute trust.

I embody her daily. I carry her boldness, her defiance, her freedom. And when I look up, I don’t just see Thunderbirds. I see my inheritance. I see her.

 

The Thunderbirds carry an energy you can feel in your bones. It’s not just the noise or the speed — it’s the trust. To fly five jets locked in formation, at hundreds of miles per hour, only inches apart… that requires more than skill. It requires surrender. It requires faith in your own hands and absolute trust in the pilot beside you.

That’s the energy of freedom — not reckless, not wild for the sake of wild, but precise, disciplined, intentional. It’s the same energy my mom carried when she threw herself into the sky, pink jumpsuit blazing against blue. It’s the same energy I carry when I step into spaces not designed for me, and do it my way anyway.

The Thunderbirds don’t just perform. They remind us what’s possible when humans lean all the way in — when we choose courage, precision, and trust over fear. They remind us that freedom is a muscle. You build it through discipline, you protect it through trust, and you express it in motion.

And maybe that’s why today shook me so deeply. Because I didn’t just see jets. I saw a mirror. I saw my mother’s fire. I saw myself.

When you look up at the sky — what do you see?

Do you see just clouds, just noise, just a show? Or do you see a reminder of what’s already in your blood — the courage, the fire, the trust that’s yours to claim?

Because maybe freedom isn’t out there somewhere. Maybe it’s already written in you.