No Planes on Sunday

“Ladies and Gentlemen, I’ve just been informed there are serious ground delays at LAX due to weather. I have no further details at this time, but I’m going to begin backup booking passenger tickets as we await further news…”

After compiling my mental checklist (Who can cover carpool for me tomorrow? Call in to work, arrange a babysitter for tomorrow after school just in case…), these are welcome words for me. Well, welcome-ish anyway. You know you don’t get much time away to yourself when you’ll happily go through airport security again just so you can sit outside on a bench on a fogged-in, crisp-for-Southern-California morning even if it might only be for 1/2 hour. Now is the unexpected opportunity to grasp and savor every last drop of this liminal time.

The ticket agent just gave us an update: LAX just closed 3 regional runways and there will be no further update for at least an hour. All around me, people display various states of frustration, dismay, and anxiety. The sweet older woman next to me, planning to fly from coast to coast today with her wheelchair-bound husband, has tears in her eyes. The whole trip was a bit too much for them to undertake in the first place, she tells me. Their flights out here presented their own challenges and re-routes. This is really more than she thinks she can bear. We enter into a holy ground conversation as we sit in uncomfortable airport waiting room chairs. She says to me, “I know I’ll make it…” I gently put my hand on her arm, look her in the eye and say, “You know, there’s no doubt about that, you will make it. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t stink.” She laughs through her tears and breathes in a big sigh. She fills my outbound prayers.

We talk about how this affects my husband and she says with feminine I-survived-the-Depression resolve, “It will be good for him to know what you do as a mom.” I tell her what a gift C is, how much I treasure and value him as a husband and father. I become wistful as I tell her was a lucky, blessed woman I am. She responds with a voice of wisdom and experience, simply saying deep and profound truisms: "Treasure every moment of it." Her words linger in my heart and mind. Tears remain welled in my eyes as I write now.

What’s peculiar about these re-routes and delays is that they really don’t impact me personally all that much. I float along in the unpredictable current with contentment and have no problem resting in this particular mystery. What’s unfair is that the unexpected waters present all kinds of shifts for so many others who have no voice or control over the shifts imposing themselves into life: the husband who has been a single dad for 5 days already, the kids wanting to see their mommy (even if the 10 year old won’t admit it), a hostess who headed back to the airport and shuffle her schedule, the neighbors saving me once again with their willingness to shuttle kids to and from school…the list goes on and on. For this list, my heart is saddened. For my own, I roll along waiting to see what scenery awaits me around the latest bend of the river’s path..