Kindness on Airplanes

When I was a child living in Utah, I used to love hearing the Southern Pacific railroad blow its whistle in the distance. It made me happy to know someone was going somewhere, and I liked to imagine who they were, what they looked like, and where they might be going. I couldn’t wait until I was old enough to go on life’s adventures too. As a teenager, I used to come home from parties and sit on my parent’s porch at 2am on warm summer nights, leaning my head against the wooden porch that my father kept freshly painted, listening to the crickets and the train whistle.

As a kid, I never thought much of airplanes as all of our trips were road trips: all six of us kids piled into our orange VW Bus sitting on blankets my father had placed on top of our suitcases in the back. I took my first plane in 1981 when I was twelve and we were moving to Chicago. My Mom bought me a new outfit for the occasion: white turtleneck with pink reindeer galloping across it; bubble gum pink “knickers” (AKA bubble shaped corduroy that stopped right below the knee); a thin gold belt; high knee socks; and pink shoes.

As life loves throwing monkey wrenches at me, picture life as a mischievous monkey chucking wrenches at my head, I got a knockdown flu for the trip and my only memory of the trip is vomiting into a bag while my Mom rubbed my back. The pictures of me at the airport boarding my first plane show an extremely pale and miserable girl with her head resting in her hands… but I still had on my cute outfit.

Flash forward a few years and my wanderlust kicked in and I flew everywhere.

While most people I know hate traveling on planes, I love them. I love turning off my phone and being unreachable for a few hours. I love reading great books, a trashy magazines, watching multiple movies, eating snacks, and having cold icy drinks delivered to me.

I have had my fair share of nasty travel experiences: long lines, dirty bathrooms, uncomfortable seats, cramped space, and people who seem to think they can conduct their personal hygiene routines in public. (I’m looking at you man who flosses his teeth on the plane and woman in yoga pants laying on the ground on her back breathing deeply in a full straddle.) Come on people!! There are certain things that should only be done behind closed doors. Oy.

Aside from the nasty experiences, I have also met really fun people on planes like the Irish soccer team who drank too much, sang Irish songs, laughed uproariously, and in general made the plane trip feel like sitting at a really festive Irish pub. I sat in my seat and read my book, delighted by hearing all the fun they were having.

So lately, my life has taken a few hard left turns, leaving me reeling in grief. An airplane is the last place I would expect to find a moment of grace, and yet, I have had many experiences on planes with kindness, and I want to share two of them. When I feel alone, or lost, I like to think about these moments because they give me hope for humanity and confirm for me what I already know—people can be really awesome.

Experience #1:

On the morning of October 27, 2018, I received a phone call. My dear friend Jen in LA said, “Can you talk?” and I happily said, “Yes! I just made a cappuccino and I’m sitting down by the fire to write.”

(Jen has a beautiful voice and should really be doing voiceovers or podcasts—and lucky for you, she does! She has an amazing podcast called “MILF” or “Mothers I’d Like to Follow”—check it out.)

She said, “Okay,” in her calm deep voice.

Then she took a deep breath and said, “She’s still alive.”

The ground dropped out from under me and my life changed forever for the worse as I shook my head, “No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no” each “no” louder and more desperate than the one before.

Our best friend, Kim, had been struggling with a long Bipolar episode. She had been stable for 15 years on her meds, but had gone off them to try to get pregnant. She had been struggling for several months and we, her team of people who loved her including her mom, me, and Jen, were zinging texts to each other several times a day for weeks, trying to figure out how to help her. She went back on meds, but they weren’t helping. Jen told me that Kim had made herself stop breathing. The paramedics were able to restart her heart twice on the way to the hospital, and she was now on a ventilator while they froze her body to see if they could bring her back. My friends said, “Go. We’ve got the kids.” I packed and got on my flight.

All these years I had loved catapulting through the air in a safe metal egg, but now I felt like I’d been thrown out the window and was catapulting through the air with no parachute.

I boarded Delta and sat in my seat staring at the screen with nothing on it.

The airline attendant chirped, “Are you going to LA for business or pleasure?”

In shock, I couldn’t participate in pleasant small talk. “Neither. My best friend hung herself and is in a coma and I am going to the hospital.”

She stopped and stared at me, her eyes welling up. She put her hand on my shoulder and squeezed me, saying softly, “I’m so sorry.”

I nodded and continued staring ahead, my body trembling, tears streaming down my face. She returned a moment later with cookies and hugged me again.

Throughout the six-hour plane ride, the airline attendants kept checking on me. One came up to me with a blanket and while she tucked it around me, she said, “I heard why you are going to LA and my brother committed suicide, so I know.” She bent down to my eye level and squeezed my hand. “Please let us know if there’s anything we can do.”

I nodded while tears kept flowing. Every one of them came to me before the plane landed and very kindly squeezed my hand or my shoulder or hugged me. Even the pilot came out as I left the plane and said, “I’m so sorry,” as I exited, shivering, even though the night air was warm.

Experience #2

A month later, I was flying back from Kim’s memorial with my kids and my Mom. You probably think you know how tiny and disgusting airplane bathrooms are, but you don’t really, not until you have flown with an elderly woman with painful swollen feet and dementia who keeps peeing her pants and you have to change her on a crowded plane. It suddenly occurred to me there must be a large bathroom somewhere on airplanes. What would you do if you had a wheelchair? I’m not sure where I thought an airplane would hide a large bathroom, but I asked the airline attendant who shook her head.

My Mom didn’t want to get up, but I didn’t want her sitting in a wet diaper for six hours. “Come on, Mom.” I said with a huge smile, the kind of smile I give to a frightened child to reassure them that there is no monster in the closet. I walked backwards down the aisle, facing her, encouraging her to follow me with the weird big smile on my face, thinking, “How in the hell did we get here? My beautiful Kim, gone; my beautiful Mom, lost without my Dad, and me, leading her down an airplane aisle to change her.

The airline attendants didn’t know what to do about changing my mom, although I have to imagine I’m not the first person on the planet to travel with an incontinent elderly person. We both couldn’t fit in the bathroom, and the airline attendant told me I couldn’t change her outside the bathroom.

“What am I supposed to do? What do other people do?”

She shrugged, her eyes big.

I said, “I’m changing her, even if it means standing in the middle of the aisle.”

Finally, the airline attendant held up a coat as a curtain, while I helped my mom change as quickly as possible. As I kneeled in the back of that plane, directing my mom to lift one swollen foot at a time while she stared at me in confusion, her feet firmly planted and I held my breath so I wouldn’t be sick, I thought, “Really life? REALLY?”

I stood up feeling like I’d just run a marathon, quickly washed hands and led her back to our seats, the same giant smile on my face. She stared at me, confused, and hobbled along not sure what we were doing or where we were, but I looked familiar to her so she followed me. I got her tucked back into her seat next to the kids, who stood up and helped get her buckled and situated, and finally collapsed into my own seat across the aisle.

I lifted my bottle of water to my mouth, feeling like I was going to throw up, my hand shaking badly, but that was normal for me after losing my beloved Kim, my beloved father, and my beloved marriage one after another.  

A few minutes later, a woman two rows behind me dropped a note on my tray, written on a vomit bag. It said:

My Mother had dementia for years. I’m not sure if your mother does, but she reminds me of my mom. I know how hard it is, but you are doing an amazing job. Your mother is lucky to have you. Wishing you strength and peace. Happy Holidays!

This random act of kindness from a stranger touched me deeply. Hot tears spilled down my cheeks. I turned and smiled at her, putting my hand on my heart and mouthing the words, “Thank you”. She nodded and went back to her book, and I felt a tiny bit lighter.