“Man, I’m thirsty.”
I glanced down at the young boy nestled beside me on row 29. We hadn’t even met, but he leaned into me, our shoulders touching.
His expectant brown eyes peered straight into mine. I offered him a soft smile and returned to my book.
“I mean, I’m really thirsty.” The boy cast boomerang glances between my nearly empty water bottle and back up to me.
I smiled again and assured him the flight attendant would bring drinks once our plane took off.
It was a full flight, and somehow I’d been assigned to an aisle row seat smack dab in the middle of this boy’s boyount family. SMACK dab. I counted at least fifteen family members, all seated together in three rows, with me in the mush pot. As they boarded and settled into their seats, the women weren’t just laughing, they were cackling. Joyous, loud, friendly cackling. All ages. The three people in front of me in their late 70s, the women behind me a tad younger, and rows across the aisle held middle age adults with a handful of children scattered throughout.
“Miss, do you have any water at all? I’m just so thirsty.”
This boy’s brown eyes made me absolutely cave. “Sure, you may not want this last bit of my water, but — ”
Swoosh it was gone. He thrust the empty plastic bottle back into my hands before I could finish my sentence. A loud sigh, and he moved from his perch on my arm and leaned back into his chair. But still facing me. He sat the whole flight that way, sideways, looking at me. Like a little Labrador pup waiting to make eye contact.
“So… do you live in Georgia or Texas?” I asked him.
“Texas! We went to Atlanta because my Pop Pop is a preacher. We went to hear him preach.”
He described their weekend of celebrating a big anniversary of a big church. Maybe 150 years old? Not a lot of details on the church service. But he did in fact show off his massive white plastic bag of Halloween candy. Not from trick-or-treating, but from a trunk-or-treat. Also at the church. Lots of celebrating.
The drink cart rattled towards our row. “Are you asking for water or soda?”
“Soda!” with a full tooth grin. “Sprite Sprite Sprite. Can’t wait for my Sprite.”
A few moments later, the flight attendant apologized that they were out of Sprite. They had almost every other soda, just no Sprite.
“Dr. Pepper,” he flashed that big grin.
He promptly banged my tray down, jostling his uncle’s chair in front of me, and showed me how I could scoot the tray back and forth. He got me all settled.
“Hey, way to go being so flexible,” I said.
“I can touch my feet to my back!”
Haha ok, yes, that kind of flexible, too.
We chatted about the church service and all the fun they had in Atlanta. I soon realized that trying to read my book was actually a vehicle for conversation. We’d chat, I’d turn to my book, and he’d have another question.
“If you could ask God just one question, what would you ask?” he asked me.
“Well, I think I’d just thank him for loving me,” I said.
“Not just you! Not JUST you. God loves everybody.”
Yep. Chuckle.
Throughout the flight, he would holler across the row to introduce me to a grandma, an aunt. “Hey this is Mrs. TJ!” We exchanged small waves and grins. A couple of the women asked if I was ok, if he was bothering me, and I assured them otherwise.
About an hour into the flight, the cabin quieted down as lights dimmed. I felt the boy’s gaze and looked up from my book.
“My uncle died.”
I closed my book. And his thoughts tumbled out in fragments.
They’d found his uncle, just twenty years old, and his girlfriend, dead in their home. No one knew what happened. Maybe an overdose? But the boy had just found out, even though it had happened a month before. The kids at school were saying mean things, and they even hit him. And all the boy could think was, “Don’t hit back. Don’t hit back. Just walk away.”
And sometimes at school, during silent reading, he cries.
“I just wish I could talk with my uncle one more time. Just one more time.”
“What would you say to him?”
“I would grab his hand and say, ‘Don’t ever let go.'”
I glanced around the rows in front of me, beside me, behind me, with a fresh perspective on these people. Joyful and fatigued, traveling home late on a Sunday evening, hearts full from a special celebration with the patriarch preacher. But each one in a gaping canyon of grief.
The plane descended, and we tidied up our space, gathering his blanket and a few items, my arm around him as he continued to fold into me.
As I stood to grab my bag overhead, I glanced back for a final sweep of the family. Really looked into their faces. And many were looking back at me. Genuine smiles, bright eyes, sleepy eyes. They were a tight group. I practically choked back a sob. We just never know what people are going through.
“Hey, don’t forget that candy!”
“OH YEAH!” The boy grabbed his white bag from under the seat and blasted one last smile.