Okay, this is weird. A consultant for my corporate client has gone missing. We didn’t book his travel, so we don’t have access to his records, so we don’t know if he’s checked in for his flight home today. The office where he was consulting has mobilized to try to find him; apparently he had a problem all week with finding his way around and kept getting hopelessly lost. Someone was to lead him to the airport earlier this morning, but he took off on his own without waiting for her, and hasn’t been heard from. Hasn’t returned his rental…

5 years ago, the skies over America were silent – no commercial flights, no private planes, and nothing flying other than birds and the occasional jet fighter on patrol over major cities like Chicago. I will never forget the leaden feeling of dread and grief that I carried around with me those first few days and weeks. During the nation-wide “flight hold,” it was hard to sleep at night, because the familiar roar of jets overhead on their way into and out of O’Hare was absent. The lack of something that I had previously found mildly annoying made for long,…