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21 Terminal Nancy’s condition had worsened dramatically in the three months I had been away. Treatment was out of the question. Her illness was terminal and she had accepted that. She was permanently on oxygen and several auxiliary tanks lay on the floor next to the dining room table. A deliveryman appeared twice a week to remove the used tanks and bring fresh ones. Plans to care for her were in place. Nancy was to remain at home with regular visits from Hospice. Paul was coming the day after Thanksgiving and would remain indefinitely. Before Paul’s arrival, and immediately following my stay, Radford was coming to visit. Nancy could get around, but she spent most of her time in bed. The big concern was her falling if she had a dizzy spell. When she did come out to the living room and tried to sit in the recliner, she tired quickly. A neighbor had been coming in to fix her lunch and dinner. I needed for Nancy to begin reading the manuscript, which she did, while I worked on my laptop computer at the dining room table, fine-tuning the prose. And we talked. Nancy reminisced a lot and my tape recorder and I were a willing and attentive audience. She talked about her father and her dream of following in his footsteps— of doing with the land the things they had planned, together, to do. And she talked about all the things she had done. “I had a voracious appetite to sample everything life had to offer. At least I wanted to try it. I was a cheerleader in high school—just to see if I could do it. I didn’t miss a damn thing, though some things were harder than others.” One night, after dinner—brought in by Chris—Nancy and Chris talked to me about their seven months of flying together in the King Air. That story is retold in chapter 19 from a tape of that evening’s conversation. Give and take defined their relationship, a dynamic example of a later-in-life friend- 166 • Chapter 21 ship. Those two very different women from very different backgrounds complemented each other. They worked well together and they genuinely liked each other. Chris was a modern-day instrument pilot, imbued with the technologies of aviation today. Nancy was a 1940s J-3 Cub pilot who loved nothing better than to fly on what pilots call a “severe clear” day and—like a soaring eagle— look down at the ground and all its wonders. Flying to Chris was practical—a job—not to say she didn’t enjoy it. Flying to Nancy was the magical world she could see from the air. That is why she loved gliding above all other aviation experiences—with the possible exception of flying that A-20. In her youth she flew the mighty power planes. In her mature years she soared, powerless and silent, above the earth, riding capricious thermals with grace and finesse. Nancy loved to talk to Chris about the old days. “I told her what it was like to fly without a compass. It is amazing to me what you can do when you look down at the ground, at the section lines. And I had my trusty old charts. I flew by the seat of my pants and you get pretty damn good at it when you do it all day, like we did ferrying across country in World War II. When we were flying those beat-up war wearies, sometimes the radio and navigation equipment didn’t work. Flying them became a matter of life and death and I got real good at it.” The book Think and Grow Rich remained in close proximity to Nancy’s sickbed. During this time she introduced me to it and began to talk to me about the concept of masterminding. “I want you to look at that book, Sarah. Chapter 10—’The Power of the Master Mind—The Driving Force.’ It’s about gaining power through the Master Mind. You don’t have to be smart. You gather people around you who are smart. You build a mastermind group. “This book that you are writing is our goal. We’re getting up a mastermind group for that book—you and me and Liz and her associates in the publishing business. I understand how it works. I want you to understand how it works as well. If I can...

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