Caroline Aigle, from pilot to mother courage
Caroline Aigle would have been 33 years old on September 12, 2007. The French Navy’s first female fighter pilot and future astronaut died on August 21 of fatal cancer. Her country still mourns her and she continues to be moved by her courageous sacrifice: she was five months pregnant when she learned that she was terminally ill and chose to postpone her treatment so that her child could born.
In mid-July 2007, Caroline received the devastating news. Far from collapsing, the woman faced adversity and she ignored the doctors who advised her to have an abortion to try to extend her life.
Together with her husband, fellow pilot Christophe Deketelaere, she decided to give the new member of her family a chance. Her second child was born at the beginning of August with only five and a half months of gestation, she called him Gabriel. He was born very small but he continues to fight for his life and has many possibilities to get ahead.
“He could not stop the life of a being that he had carried with him for five months. He told me: ‘He has the right to have possibilities like me,'” Christophe declared.
For her husband, this pregnancy was “her last fight and she won it.” Before she died, she was able to see her son several times and carry him in her arms. “She was heroic to the end,” she assured.
Caroline Aigle (meaning “eagle”) was born in Montauban, France, in 1974. At the age of 14, she entered the Saint-Cyr military school. In May 1999 she became a fighter pilot and was in charge of a Mirage 2000-5 of the Cote d’Or Fighter Squadron in Dijon. In 2005 she became squadron commander and since 2006 she has been performing flight safety duties at the Metz command center.
His funeral was presided over by the priest Pierre Demoures, a former fighter pilot. In his homily, Father Demoures remembered Caroline as a person who led people to Christ with her “qualities, kindness, availability, passion” and for her “choices” in considering “her son as a life that exceeded simple human vision of life” and for which “he delayed a treatment that was urgent”.
The priest recalled that when Caroline and Christophe sought him out to prepare for their marriage, they asked him for a text that did not speak of love for one another “but that deals with the love that opens us and leads us to love others.”
“The great lesson Caroline taught us is the urge to love. Not an urge to fear, but the vital urge to know that only love brings life. Man is made for life. This urge can make love more strong and give life to a treasure in the midst of the most tragic events,” said the priest.
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