Col. Harold Sydney “Hank” Snow in front of an F-105 fighter. (Provided photo — Amy Cheyney-Seymour)

It was the Day of the Dead, so naturally, I was thinking of dead people.

My first catastrophic loss was my beloved goldfish, Romeo and Juliet. Doomed from the start, they lived a short and happy life repeatedly discovering their castle, until I found them belly up, side by side.

My propensity for unrequited grief for anything with fin, paw, hoof or wing was revealed that day in a slobbering sob-fest. We had a family ceremony by the swing set, laying R&J to rest in little matchbox coffins deep in the ground.

Next I got a hamster, which I later learned was three hamsters, named Squirmles. In an attempt to abate my hysterics, my parents kept replacing Squirmles numero uno, with look-alikes.

I knew something was amiss when the black spot on Squirmles’ belly disappeared the same day he bit me for the first time.

“Look,” I showed my mom, “his spot is gone.”

“Well, he is growing up,” she said, turning back to her sewing.

“And he bit me, too,” I said, waving my wounded finger.

“Hamsters do that, maybe you held him too tight.”

That was an understatement. I hold all my animals too tight.

When I was 17 my Grandpa Cheney died. I knew before WWII he worked for the U.S. Weather Service on Whiteface Mountain and skied up and down once a week to get his food. He was tall and had big blue eyes and radiated kindness.

I didn’t know my grandpa like my children know their grandparents, he didn’t travel to my sporting events, or co-sign my car loan, but he did buy us a pinball machine for Christmas, which was next level awesome. My grandpa kept his illness a secret; I last saw him as an echo of himself, as he waved farewell from his hospital bed.

A few months later my dad invited me to spread Grandpa’s ashes over the St. Lawrence River by plane. Distracted by which terrible perm to get, and when MTV was on, I overlooked the fact that I agreed to my first plane ride.

The day of the drop, my dad and I drove to Lake Clear Airport. I volunteered to wait in the car, but Jerry was having none of it.

We walked on the tarmac to a plane the size of a port-o-potty. A man came toward us, with a big smile and an easy-going stroll. My dad introduced him as Hank Snow, mentioning this was my first plane ride.

“Well, is that so?” Hank said, smiling at me, with a little glint in his eye. “Not to worry,” he said, gesturing toward the plane, “it’s not My first flight.”

Now for sure, some of you locals have already predicted what my experience was that morning. What I didn’t know then was that Hank Snow was Col. Harold S. Snow, fighter pilot and trick plane aficionado.

As a fighter pilot in WWII, Korea and Vietnam, properly acknowledging Hank Snow’s accomplishments would require more than my column word limit, which I already exceed. Life after the three wars and 666 combat missions was apparently too dull, so Hank started a flight school, and became a stunt pilot. One popular trick was to land a Piper Cub airplane on the top of a moving Buick station wagon. Then to up the ante, Hank would take off from the same rooftop.

This would have been excellent information before I allowed myself to be strapped into the port-o-plane.

Takeoff was smooth, we raced towards the clouds as the ground receded, lakes shrank to puddles, and rivers to ribbons.

We cruised along beneath the cumulus clouds. The engine was too loud for conversation, the hum of the plane gently shaking in rhythm with my nerves.

My expectation of ashes floating in the ethereal morning sunlight to settle and sink into the easy waves of the St. Lawrence River ceased when Hank let my dad, who was taking flying lessons, have a turn.

“No!” I said into the din. I kept shaking my head from the backseat, but they could neither hear nor see me.

With a giant smile my dad took the yoke as he embodied his inner Snoopy, banking to the left, then swooping lower to the right. The first sway away from slow and steady, my stomach lurched into my throat as a wave of nausea crept up my gorge. Sweat rivulets soaked my shirt in minutes.

I closed my eyes. My dad apparently skipped lesson number one: How to Fly in a Straight Line. We continued our course like a drunk sailor, with each push of the yoke sending me seconds closer to tossing my bagel breakfast.

Hank made a waving motion with his hand and suddenly we dropped ten thousand feet, and climbed five thousand feet. OK, it was probably twenty feet down and up ten feet but it was hard judging with my eyes shut and my hands over my face.

This repeated for a few times before I reached and grabbed my Dad’s arm so he caught sight of my green tinged complexion, and Hank thankfully took over.

I put my head between my knees and prayed for terra firma. Hank took out the bag of Grandpa’s ashes, opened a small window, and what remained of my Grandpa rushed by.

About a year later, my dad handed each of us an envelope from my grandfather’s estate settlement. Money felt like a hollow consolation prize for losing a whole person.

Like all of us, I have lost relatives and friends, who willed me different objects, some treasured, some I re-gifted.

More than money or nicknacks, I wish our beloved dead could give us character traits, knowledge, or skills. Imagine if you suddenly gained an incredible sense of humor from your Great Uncle, could bake cookies like your grandmother, or understood the complicated physics of how to land a plane on a moving station wagon.