How I Came to Film My Father’s Last Flight Home
One day in July of 1982, my father Eli Timoner ran six miles, led a meeting of a thousand employees, went in for his weekly massage, and left on a gurney. He was paralyzed and blind on the left side from an accidental stroke caused by the manipulation of his neck. He was 53 and running the fastest-growing airline in the world at that time, a start-up called Air Florida, which was flying to 17 countries and employed 3,000 people, though he had founded it only 10 years earlier. I was his “pal,” the feisty, sensitive middle child who he always understood and defended. He “got me,” and I thought he hung the moon.
And then that summer day he was struck down instantly, wheelchair-bound at a time when there were no protections for the disabled, and you certainly never saw one running a huge public company. I was only 9 years old, and from that day forward, I witnessed the unraveling of a life before my very eyes. I learned that security is an illusion, as he was pushed out of the company he founded, only to watch it go bankrupt from mismanagement, and half the community turn their backs—either because they didn’t know what to say, or they couldn’t bear the thought of such a thing happening to them, or they didn’t want to be asked to help. The black-tie invitations stopped rolling in and gradually the Timoners went from being a royal family in Miami to social pariahs. Although there was “Eli’s Army” (the loyal couples that stood by my parents and even bailed them out financially) the shame took hold then and my father—the humble provider, the beloved patron of the arts, and leader of one of the most innovative companies in America—was crushed under the weight of his own body, which no amount of ingenuity could make work again.
Still, he soldiered on with positivity and love. He survived by paying attention to all of us around him and rooting us on. He watched over his wife Lisa and his three children, Rachel, Ondi, and David, and he tried to care for us, cooking with one arm, trying to play tennis, balancing a cane while someone held the back of his shorts. I learned what tenacity looks like from him, and also how loving wholly can be one’s salvation. He loved us so much, it kept him going. He would pass the days in his chair by checking in, guiding us, cheering us on. He was so funny and sweet… and he was wise.