Waiting for takeoff
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Sean of the South
Sean Dietrich
We were sitting on a plane. Awaiting takeoff. I am convinced that if you live wrongly, if you treat your fellow man poorly, if you are selfish, if you are not a good person, you will die and wake up in Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport.
You will be condemned to find yourself in the TSA line on a major holiday weekend. Officials will compel you to remove your shoes, belt, jacket, eyeglasses, insulin pump, pacemaker, and you shall be frisked.
You will hold up your pants with one hand while a stranger who is exhibiting signs of severe occupational depression gropes your groin region. And everything will be going fine, until your wife trips the metal detector with her Swiss Army knife.
But, thankfully, we were all finished with TSA. I was bound for the Frozen North. I was sitting in my Barbie-sized airline seat, practicing good armrest etiquette.
Across the aisle was an elderly woman. She had a boy with her. He was maybe 15.
You could tell she was nervous because she looked pale. She was sort of hyperventilating. Trembling. She looked like she was about to vomit, which worried me because I have a strong involuntary empathetic regurgitation reflex.
“Nervous?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“First time?” I said.
“No, I’ve been nervous lots of times.”
I liked this woman.
The boy held her hand tightly. He kept saying, “It’s okay.”
“I’m fine,” she kept saying. Which is what people who aren’t fine always say.
Then the boy started singing. It was only light humming at first. But then he sang slightly louder. His voice never grew loud enough to bother the passengers, but it was enough for her to hear.
She sang along. Her voice was low. They were squeezing hands. The woman’s eyes were shut tightly. She kissed the boy’s hand.
We underwent the launch sequence. It was a jarring takeoff. Lots of shaking. Lots of rattling. A flight attendant eventually came to ask whether the woman was okay.
“I’m fine,” she insisted.
The boy never quit squeezing her hand, stroking her lily white skin. And when we landed, the boy was still singing softly during touchdown.
I saw them getting off the plane after our flight. He was walking alongside her. She was holding him for balance.
A flight attendant pulled the boy aside and said, “You’re a very good grandson.”
“Oh, I’m not her grandson,” he said. “She just looked like she needed a friend.”
