Babin's story puts wings on inspiration

Sometimes when we confront our worst fears, those fears take flight, never to haunt or hold us back again.

And sometimes it isn’t fear so much that needs to be exorcised, but a barrier removed so a new chapter can begin.

Jamie Babin fits the second example better than the first. The amazing 30-year-old survived a plane crash 14 years ago that claimed the pilot’s life and left Jamie paralyzed from the waist down. Until last week, the girl who loved to fly hadn’t been in an airplane since the accident.

That changed Friday when ex-Navy pilot and current Beacon Pub owner Jerry Goggin helped lift Babin into his 1958 T-34 Beechcraft at Coeur d’Alene Airport and took her on a 45-minute aerobatic adventure that included barrel rolls and loops. So much for easing someone into the ice water; Babin reportedly enjoyed every heart-beating moment.

“As weird as it might sound, this is a comfort zone for me,” said Babin, who grew up with planes and aerobatics at her family’s small airport in Canada.

It may be a comfort zone, yet after the accident, Babin still hadn’t been in an airplane for nearly half of her life.

“I did kind of move on from it, but I’ve felt kind of stuck too,” Babin told Press reporter Keith Cousins before her Friday flight. “So this is getting me on my way forward.”

We admire Babin and applaud Goggin, who befriended Babin at the pub a couple of years ago. In the hope that tragic circumstances can have some redeeming quality by showing the rest of us ways to improve our lives, we appreciate the Babin-Goggin connection not just because it’s a feel-good story, but an inspiration.

From the time most of us learned to swim or ride a bike, failure was our companion until success finally arrived. But those are childhood obstacles that with a little persistence and parental encouragement are fairly easily overcome. Surviving a plane crash like the one that grounded a young woman in a wheelchair would relegate most of us to seeking our thrills anywhere but the sky.

While the word “courage” never appeared in Keith’s story, it was the real theme. It’s in the bedrock of Jamie Babin’s will not just to live, but to thrive. Where many of us cower in the shadow of past failures or misfortune, people like Jamie Babin refuse to be marginalized. Maybe that’s why they end up flying higher, faster and farther than the rest of us.