Wordlessly, she slid past our knees and settled into the window seat with a harrumph. There was no other way to do it, with those narrow aisles and barely-enough leg room. But even so, my son nestled to my right inched closer, looking up at me with worry in his bright blue eyes.
“Mom,” he whispered, tugging on the sleeve of my jacket. “She doesn’t speak English. How am I supposed to know what she’s saying?”
My eyes flicked quickly to the woman. I wondered if she had heard my son or could sense the way he pulled away from the unfamiliarity of her body. It was his first flight, and a bit of an old man in a small boy’s body, his nerves were frayed about so many new things all at once. He had been especially anxious about the empty seat next to him and the stranger who would inevitably occupy it.
I wanted to soothe his concern so I gave him a quick hug, a kiss on the head, and a smile. “Everything is fine,” I assured him. The older woman had begun to eyeball us curiously, so I gave her smile too, the kind of smile I hope conveyed that she too had nothing to fear in the strangers beside her.
The fasten-seatbelt light came on as the muffled voice of the pilot greeted us over the intercom. I quickly tighten my belt and made sure my son’s was securely in place but noticed how the woman’s weathered hands were fumbling with the buckle. She seemed unable to tighten the belt across the soft part of her midsection that peeked out like a tan pillow between the top and bottom of her cerulean sari. I picked up my son’s buckle, gesturing how to adjust the straps, but the buckle was not her friend, so I eventually reached over to fasten it myself. She let me.
Within minutes, we pulled away from the gate, and as the airplane taxied toward the runway, I handed my son a piece of peppermint gum. I extended the Trident to the woman, and she took a single foil-wrapped piece. The three of us turned toward the small oval window, chewing our gum and watching as the Midwestern ground disappeared beneath us.
The flight was largely uneventful, and the three of us were content to sit in silence. Occasionally, the woman would reach across my son who was listening to an audiobook on my phone and tap the screen to check the time. Toward the end of the two-hour flight, we hit some turbulence, and my son’s face paled. His lips formed into a thin, tight line. The gum hadn’t helped the pressure in his ears so he lay quietly on my lap. At one point, he sat up to take a drink of water but ended up coughing and sputtering a bit to get it down. I reached for napkins, while the woman reached out and patted him on the head. The kindness surprised him, and his questioning eyes locked in with mine. Once again, I smiled and nodded as if to say, “Yes. Everything is still fine.”
Fifteen minutes later, the airplane landed. The seatbelt was no kinder to the woman this time around, so I reached across my son to lift her metal buckle as she pulled the faded blue strap from its sheath. Grateful for solid ground, we all stood and stretched and, when our turn came, filed into the center aisle. I can’t remember whether we said goodbye or waved or even made eye contact as we left, but the moment we departed the airplane, the woman was gone
The following day, our entire family of six crammed into a minivan rental, and making our way through metropolitan Orlando, pointed out all the potential ice cream places we could visit while on vacation. As we drove, our oldest son observed the amount of diversity we had experienced thus far on our trip. We began to list all the languages we had heard since arriving in Central Florida and pointed out various restaurants we couldn’t find back in our small rural Indiana city, when our youngest son piped up from the middle seat, “What if the person who works at the ice cream place doesn’t speak English?”
Ben glanced back at our four boys in the rearview mirror, “Well remember yesterday on the plane when J sat next to a woman who didn’t speak English? They figured out how to communicate just fine.”
J sat up in his seat a little straighter and chimed in, “Yeah, she only knew a few English words.”
I smiled back at him, “She was kind, wasn’t she?”
“Yeah, she was nice.” His face turned outward, his nose nearly touching the window as if reflecting on our flight and the stranger who sat next to us. And while I could not see the fullness of his face, I no longer sensed anxiety but a newfound confidence, maybe even an openness, peeking out from the corners of his eyes. I sat back in my carseat and exhaled, the breath carrying the sweetness of expanse and the echoes of a silent prayer: that we would never stop reaching with strangers or hesitate to embrace the people we do not understand.
Beautiful.
Always look forward to your words!