Last Christmas my youngest son received a remote controlled drone. It was a nice drone. So nice, in fact, that it required 10 AA batteries. Four batteries went into the drone itself and six went into the remote.

Christmas was really good to my boy and it was a week or so before he got around to playing with the new flying contraption. The thing is, he decided to play with the drone in my absence. Hubby was “watching” our two boys and my 5 year-old nephew when they opened the drone and its parts. After the surprise hurricane of packaging and instructions, the boys enlisted hubby to help with the batteries and directions. Taking his dad duties very seriously, my husband coached the boys on how to insert batteries the correct way and made valiant attempts to read the directions as they flew the drone crazily INSIDE our house.

After a “crash course” in drone flying, hubby and the three aspiring pilots took the flying terror outside. It was a clear and fairly warm day for late December so take off was a go. The drone proved difficult to control for the little hands of the the boys, and my husband was forced to keep a vigilant eye on their piloting. After a bit, they were cold and chose to come inside. The drone was left on the kitchen counter and the boys dispersed to reek havoc on another part of the house.

A short time later, my husband took a phone call in our home office and the drone took an unsupervised flight compliments of my nephew.

Here’s the exciting part. My 8 year-old had the sense to say, “Hey, we can’t fly it in the house.” So…. he took the drone outside.

My nephew and the remote stayed inside.

With no real control or ability to see what he was doing, that maniacal 5 year-old just held the UP button as my oldest son watched the drone disappear into the sky.

As he ended his phone call, the only thing my husband witnessed was my son on the back porch screaming, “It’s so high I can’t see it anymore!” Hubby grabbed the remote from its unlicensed pilot and made an attempt to bring the drone back down.

There were two problems with his plan. 1. Hubby had NO idea where the drone was. 2. His hasty use of DOWN button caused a descent so quick that all he saw was a flash of black before the drone landed somewhere in the pasture behind our house.

When I returned home, the boys and the disaster area of discarded drone packaging told quite a tale. We searched the field for an hour or two, but never found it.

After our fruitless search, I opened the back of the remote to retrieve the batteries. My sweet, now droneless son patted me on the back and said, “At least we still got the batteries, Mom.”

He was right. Losing the drone was a bummer, but at least we still had 60% of our batteries. It was an Intentergy moment. There was still a positive charge to be felt from the situation and lessons to be learned from the adventure. (And no more drone flying in my house.) 

If you find yourself in a situation of loss, I hope you will give your energy positive purpose, as my boy did, and be grateful for what you have left and the potential you can power through with those remnants.

By: Melanie A. Peters

P.S. I wish the drone packaging disaster had disappeared with the drone.