The Art of Flying

We were sitting on a plane. Waiting for takeoff. I don’t mind planes, although frankly I’d rather have an emergency colonoscopy.

It’s not the flying that bothers me. It’s the airport.

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 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 earns slightly above minimum wage gropes your groinal region. And everything will be going fine, until your wife trips the metal detector with her brass knuckles.

And then it will be a long day for everyone.

But, thankfully, we were finished with TSA. I was bound for Maryland. Which isn’t a place I travel often. The last time I went to Maryland, the lady bartender gave me free drinks because she said I “talked cute.”

So there I was. I was sitting in my mini-airline seat. Beside me 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. I could see her trembling. She looked like she was about to vomit, which worried me because I was wearing new shoes.

“Nervous?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“First time?” I said.

“No, I’ve been nervous lots of times.”

But the boy held her hand tightly. He kept saying, “It’s okay, Nana. I’ve got you.”

“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 louder. His voice never grew loud enough to bother the passengers, but it was enough for Nana to hear.

“You are my sunshine…” he sang quietly. He sang every verse.

Nana sang along. Her voice was low. They were squeezing hands. The woman’s eyes were shut tightly. She kissed the boy’s hand.

“Do you remember when you’d sing this song to me?” said the boy. “Whenever I was scared?”

“I do.”

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 Nana’s hand, stroking her white hair. And when we landed in The Old Line State, the boy was singing during touchdown.

I saw them getting off the plane after our flight. He was holding her. She was holding him for balance.

A flight attendant pulled the boy aside and said, “You’re a very good grandson.”

“Me?” he said.

“Yes. I saw you singing to your grandmother on the flight. That was a very sweet thing to do.”

“That ain’t my grandmother,” he said. “That’s my foster mom.”

“Well, you did a very nice thing.”

“Not really,” he said with a shrug. “You ain’t even know what that woman’s done for me.”

He’s right, of course. I ain’t even know.

But I wish I did.