Jeremy Wise, a navy pilot, died Friday when his Hornet had a mid-air collision with a Tiger during a training mission out of Fallon.

We knew Jeremy and his family in Kingsville, Texas.  Since there wasn't a lot to do during downtime the guys made up interesting games like "The Brownie Challenge," "The Egg Challenge," and "The Cake Challenge" - let me be clear when I say even the "winners" of those challenges weren't really winners when you consider how much they puked afterwards.  We played poker a lot, and I remember one game night of trivia, after Sonia had Liam, where they brought him along.  I remember thinking how much Liam looked like his dad - and goodness, but you could see how proud Jeremy was of his little man.

We knew them only a short while, mostly through other friends - everyone kinda just hung out together down there.  But when I saw this story, it was so shocking...we could have seen them yesterday for how vividly all the times we hung out came back to me.  Passing Sonia on walks around the complex when she was still pregnant, boys against girls trivia where the guys cheated to high heaven and thought we didn't know it...

Heaven.

I can only take solace knowing that someone like Jeremy is definitely up there now, looking down on the rest of us.  That is what keeps me from totally falling apart at the knowledge that his wife had no idea that when he walked out the door that morning it would be the last and that his son, the little guy that looks so much like him, will grow up without even knowing him.

What a loss for everyone, but especially his family.