It was pilot Ron Wright’s last earthly flight. And it teaches us life lessons.
The sanctuary at First Presbyterian Church, a beautiful Gothic Revival structure set amid stately trees on North Main Street in High Point, was crowded the other day with friends and colleagues of Ron Wright, who devoted his work life to Wright of Thomasville in nearby Thomasville.
He left us far too soon, at 62, after he succumbed October 19 to injuries he sustained in an auto accident in High Point a day earlier.
His brother Don, chairman of Wright Creative Branding & Labels, as the family business is now known, delivered a heartfelt tribute to Ron, whom he described as a trusted confidant, advisor, and business partner.
He shared a story from the terrible day of that accident that says a lot about how Ron lived his life.
News reports say that Ron was conscious and alert after the accident. But they don’t say anything about the conversation that Ron had with the pilot of the medical helicopter that swooped in to take him to Wake Forest Baptist Hospital in Winston-Salem.
Ron, who possessed an adventurous spirit, earned his pilot’s license when he was just 14. “He took joy in taking his children into the sky and sharing that part of the world with him,” his obituary noted.
Don said that when Ron saw the pilot in the helicopter he asked him how many flight hours he had accumulated, a question that signaled his knowledge of a pilot’s world. The two pilots connected over their common bond. Then the helicopter pilot said he would get Ron to the hospital as quickly as he could.
“I wouldn’t mind if you would fly around a bit,” Ron responded. He was calm in this storm, just as he was throughout his globe-trotting business career. And his sometimes stoic nature flared in that moment.
The Rev. David Smith, the transitional pastor at First Presbyterian Church, talked about the freedom that flying provides in his homily. And he referenced the inspiring message in Isaiah 40: 28-31, scripture that the family selected, which reads in part: “They who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles.”
In his final flight, Ron soared, like an eagle, above earth’s frays below. He appreciated one last time the freedom and the escape that flying gave him throughout his life.
His family wanted his celebration of life service to be upbeat, and it was, despite the tears of those who mourned him. The service featured two hymns and two solos and ended with Jimmy Buffett’s “Bubbles Up,” a song about hope.
We walked out of the sanctuary and into the bright sunshine of a lovely fall day, thankful for the thoughtful, well-lived life of businessman and family man Ronald Edward Wright.
