This 'fear of flying' was denying me the pleasures of travel which we had always promised each other when we retired.
Now I knew I would never be able to do so.
Then my eyes fell on a pamphlet, which came with the newspaper, advertising evening classes. One was Flight Familiarization. I completed and mailed the application - before I could change my mind!
When the classes began, my husband was away on yet another exciting trip. I could not admit I was learning about flying, so I told him I would be studying computer programming again.
The classes were fascinating. The time went quickly and I was really sorry when the classes came to an end. The instructors suggested we all attend a party at the Soaring Club.
They really put on a good party. The draw prize was a ride in a training glider. (I prayed that I would not win - and didn't.)
Alone again on the weekends which followed I was drawn to the Soaring Club to watch the planes and people enjoy their marvellous rides.
Finally, one day in early March, I actually paid to go up in a glider.
From the first moment I knew I had made a terrible mistake.
The plane was really tiny, like being in the nose of a bomb, the front of which was nearly all clear. We flew at 2,000 feet in a surprisingly noisy craft.
But a week later I decided to join the Guelph Gliding Club.
I paid my fee before I left that evening. The next day, in the paper I read that the only club tow plane had crashed and was a write-off!
That put an end to my plans, didn't it? No!
Within half an hour, I was on the phone to the chief flying instructor at Guelph Airport asking if he could teach me to fly a power aircraft.
Not only did that kind, patient, person and the six others who followed, teach me to fly, but they also taught me to get out of a spiral dive, stall or spin, to practise steep 2-G turns and to navigate cross-country solo.
I now have a commercial pilot licence for a power aircraft and had an instrument rating. I was also learning to become a flying instructor.
From the misery and threat of my life it has become the pleasure above all others.
The only problem? I still don't want to travel - I'd rather be flying.