A Connecting Fight

If it were possible to rewind the first half-hour of that flight, here's what I would do differently:

I would smile at her -- and mean it.

I would cheerfully hop out of my seat to let her step into the aisle.

I would nod in sympathy as her young daughter, in a voice climbing with panic, stood two inches from my face and cried over a lost souvenir.

I would do all of these things because this is the person I want to be, the fellow passenger I ought to be.

But that isn't what happened. By the time I boarded the plane to Washington, D.C., I was flushed from rushing and tired of talking. So, I sat next to her in seat 8B, nodded, and then buried my face in a newspaper. I wrinkled my brow when her daughter yelled in my ear. I sighed when I stepped out of my seat to let her pass, sighed again as her restlessness forced me to adjust my elbow on the armrest between us. When I got out of my seat again upon her return, my mood was a simmering stew of put-upon me.

Then she said something that changed everything.

First, the small talk: "Do you live in Washington?" she asked.

I turned from my paper to look at her. She was pretty, and tired.

"Some of the time," I said. "Do you?"

She shook her head. Her family was on the second of three flights home after a two-week vacation. They had volunteered to give up their seats to a family "that had to get back," ending up with a tougher schedule of flights for their own return.

"No good deed," she said, smiling softly.

"You're a nice person to do that," I said.

She shook her head. "We weren't in that much of a hurry."

We chatted about the relentless drill of parenting, how the word "vacation" doesn't describe two weeks of constant effort to keep three children entertained. Somehow, the conversation shifted. I search my memory for the turn of phrase that triggered the opening, but I come up blank. All I remember is that her despair tumbled out and my stomach seized.

"I lost my husband last year," she said, softly. "He died. Last year."

I shifted in my seat to face her, reached for her hand. "I'm so sorry," I said, the heat rising in my cheeks.

She recited the simple facts of an unthinkable horror: He was 42. Still an athlete and a beloved coach. "I always thought I'd go first," she said. "He took such good care of himself."

It was an accident. At home, in the middle of the night. He fell and hit his head.

"Some days," she said, "I still can't believe this is happening."

I wadded up my newspaper and shoved it under the seat in front of me. For the rest of the flight, I tried to make it up to her. She talked and I mostly listened, wishing we had more time.

When her friends ask how she's doing, "I tell them I'm fine," she said, shrugging her shoulders. "I know that's what they need to hear. They want it to be over."

She looked down at her lap, smoothed the folds of her long skirt. "I want it to be over, too," she said. "It just doesn't seem to work that way."

Days later, our conversation lingers like a ghost nudging me away from my cozy assumptions. I keep thinking of my friend Rosie's story about the woman whose life had turned into one long string of bad news. Her daily prayer became a plea: "Please, God, pick another name."

I imagine a celestial hand reaching into the hat, the sound of shuffling papers as we hold our collective breath, waiting. Who will be next? Who ever knows?

I want to rewind the first half-hour of that flight to Washington, but I can't change what happened. The only do-over resides in me.

This time, when I trip over my husband's slippers, I don't complain. I leave his pile of handwritten notes on the kitchen counter as a promise of his safe return. I call him for no reason. Many times.

On my next flight, I settle into seat 11B.

I turn to the woman sitting next to me.

I smile, and I mean it.

Connie Shultz
Parade Magazine 05/23/2010