The sky had a pink and purple hue as Amornrat Hedden and her son flew over Kent Island. She thought the gradient lights she was seeing could have something to do with the abrupt changes in weather. Temperatures had dropped, and she was shaking slightly in the cold night.

“Oh, this is the northern lights, by the way,” the pilot said.

Hedden’s instincts kicked in — she had been a reporter in her native Thailand — and she began to take photos of the sky with her camera. Her tripod was too heavy for her to bring into the small Cessna 172, a single-engine aircraft, so she tried to keep her hands steady. But it was difficult, she said.

As she stared at the screen of her camera, then at the sky, she began to cry. She was almost in a dream state.

Hedden put it this way: She is a single mother raising two teenage boys. She doesn’t make a lot of money. It never crossed her mind to see the aurora borealis, let alone have a flight as a gift for her son. And yet there she was.

In the clear, illuminated sky overlooking the Chesapeake Bay, she realized she could do this for her kids. She could show them the northern lights. Her son was a little nervous during the flight, but he had fun.

Ayden, her oldest, will turn 17 on Halloween. Ayden never liked big birthday parties and huge cakes. Her youngest son does, she said, so she plans those for him. But, for Ayden, she tries to do something special. One year, she took him on a crab cake crawl at restaurants and hotels.

“This year, I take him to fly,” she said.

Hedden found the ticket for this flight a few months ago on Groupon — for $100. Only $100. She had to buy it.

“I bought it because it’s cheap,” she said. “That’s the point.”

She wanted to take him flying closer to his birthday. But Thursday morning she saw the news to look out for the aurora in Maryland.

“No way,” she thought to herself. “No way.”

She called Brett Aviation, a flight school in Middle River, to see if any flights were available. She went for the last flight of the evening, hoping to beat traffic. At the same time, she wanted to be there early. She wanted everything to go perfectly. She didn’t tell Ayden about the northern lights. She doesn’t like to get her sons’ hopes up.

Hedden hung up the phone and went to Ayden.

“Honey, we gonna go fly,” she said.

“What? Tonight?” he said. The weather forecast was for a cold night.

“Let’s go tonight, honey.” she pressed. “It’s gonna be fun.”

She looked expectantly at the orange hues as they took off from Martin State Airport during twilight.

Hedden thinks the pilot might have taken them closer to Ocean City. She wasn’t listening anymore after she saw the lights on Kent Island. All she did was look at the sky, snap a photo and stare at the lights again.

She was fine with the photos. She wanted to keep that sight in her memory, ingrained in her brain forever.

“Honey, remember this,” she told him. Hold on to this memory for the rest of your life. “I really don’t think that we’re going to see this stuff again.”

Or maybe they will, she pondered, on land. But not on an airplane.

Hedden said she doesn’t want to push Ayden into any path. He should figure out on his own what he wants to do. But maybe the flight, the lights — maybe he could be a pilot.

“Honey, if you wear some uniform, I’m gonna be so proud,” she told him. “Your grandmother would be very proud.”

(He told her he does not want to be a pilot but later said he enjoyed the birthday flight.)

Hedden looked at the sky after they landed, as she drove home to Hampden. She thought the sky was reddish. Maybe. Her eyes could be playing tricks on her. Then she went to bed.

When she woke up, her eyes went wide.

“It was real,” she said.

It wasn’t a dream.