The Messy Human Element of Travel can be… Perfection

I was traveling home from a 6-day work trip, exhausted and ready for recovery. I was getting pretty excited to listen to sound bath music during the flight and begin down regulating my nervous system after a hectic week… but a stranger had other plans for me.

She sat down in my row in the window seat with no one between us. She pulled out a tattered manila folder with “Jenny,” scrawled across it in pencil. It was full of blank 81/2 x 11 sheets of printer paper with a big stack of them folded in half.

The papers were in disarray on the seat between us, the folder partially hanging off the seat threatening to fall to the floor and further spread the mess.

She pulled out crosswords, word searches and her mobile phone from her backpack before trying to stow it haphazardly under the seat in front of her. Bumping the seat in front of her several times, the gentleman passenger occupying the seat turned around to cast a frustrated glare in her direction.

She tried to apologize to him but it was lost with the chaos and noise of the plane.

I patted her arm and gestured to the grumpy passenger in front of her, rolling my eyes in an attempt of solidarity.

After a few moments, my seat mate lowered her mask and asked me, “Why did you do that? What do you mean?”

It appeared to me her question was genuinely asked to understand the communication.

I told her that I thought the passenger giving her a glare was a turkey and that I was with her.

She smiled a genuine smile.

As the crew prepared the cabin for departure, a flight attendant came by, pointed to the disheveled paper situation between us and said in an irritated tone, “what’s going on here.”

It wasn’t really a question, but more of a frustration.

My neighbor anxiously worked to straighten the papers and clean it up. When she apologized to the flight attendant, I detected speech challenges. As the closest passenger to the flight attendant, I gave assurance we would get put it away.

After the flight attendant left our row, I learned my seat mates name was in fact Jenny.

She pulled down her mask when we talked as it seemed a bit of a challenge for her to keep on.

I struggled to understand her with my own hearing impairment and told her I was deaf in one ear.

She smiled.

She told me of her speech challenges, that she was 45 years old, lives in a group home, travels to see her family and that her beloved dad died last year.

She told me she’s afraid of losing her mom and that she misses her dad so much.

I asked her to tell me about her dad and she smiled the biggest smile I’ve seen in a very long time.

As she shared details about him, my heart ached. His favorite food, his nickname for her, that he loved her so much.

I pieced together that her parents lived in Florida and placed her in a group home in Indiana because of the programs offered for her here. And because they wanted Jenny to be cared for after they die.

She has friends, she has a job and she is 45. And to be quite honest, I wanted to take her home with me. She was the absolute sweetest human, ever.

She had opinions, strong ones, about her nephew that doesn’t call her Aunt Jenny, just Jenny. She says “he’s a teenager,” and throws up her hands in resignation, but she didn’t understand why he couldn’t call her Aunt Jenny.

We both laugh.

She looked me in the eyes intensely. She talked. She left periods of quiet. She asked me the same question a few times. She repeated the same thing about her dad. All the while, looking me right in the eyes with focused presence. I was in awe of her.

She told me she was afraid her mother will die.

“She walks slower. Why does she do that?”

“She sleeps a lot, why does she do that?”

“Do you think she is going to die? I don’t want her to leave me.”

I told her she walks slower so she can enjoy more of life and breathe it all in. That we all hope to slow down like her mom to enjoy more of life.

I told her I like to sleep a lot to rest my mind and body and that I understand how her mom feels.

I skipped over the death question. Ugh.

She asked me to show her pictures of my daughters. She stared into my phone intensely looking at each of my girls and smiling to the picture as if they were right in front of her.

At this point, my heart is aching at the sight of this magnificent human being that I got extremely lucky to share 2 hours with.

The same overworked flight attendant eventually came by to take our drink order and I showed her my phone discreetly.

In my notes app, I typed, “I believe my seat mate may have special needs. FYI. She is so sweet.”

The flight attendant looked at me for a moment with what I think was regret, and graciously talked to sweet Jenny about her beverage order.

Jenny and I talked on and off during the flight. She would intermittently stop talking and work on her word search without any warning. I couldn’t stop smiling behind my own mask. She was the purest form of light.

She told me again about her dad, and quite frankly, my eyes began to tear up. I could feel my throat began to constrict as I choked back my tears.

Tears of remembering a beloved aunt with Down’s syndrome that I was too young to fully appreciate before she passed. Tears of wishing she was alive so I could spoil her, make her laugh, and buy her dolls that she loved dearly.

Tears for my mother when she buried her beloved sister whom she had taught to walk, cared for like a mother, and was the light in her life.

Tears for Jenny experiencing the devastating loss of a parent and fear of losing the other.

This sweet girl said, “don’t cry,” with her big smile as she squeezed my hand comforting me.

Jenny then said her mother was born February 12, 1944. “How old is she?”

I did the math out loud counting in tens incase she could join. “She is 78,” I told her. Jenny returned to her word search with no response.

A few minutes later she turned to me, wide eyes no smile, “is she going to die? I’m afraid she will die and leave me.”

I felt sick to my stomach wracking my brain for the right response she desperately needed to hear.

“No. Not now.”

“Ok.” She smiled and went back to her word search and I quietly cried a little more.

I bought my girls beautiful bracelets on my trip. Bracelets made with stones representing peace, harmony and strength. I pulled out the blue one, for peace, and handed it to her.

No words. She put it on her wrist immediately, examined it for a moment, and went back to her word search.

She turned to me a few minutes later and said, “did you buy this for one of your daughters?”

I lied and said, “No. I bought that for me because it has special stones that help a person feel peaceful when they might feel fear or another big feeling. But now I want you to have it.”

That smile of hers nearly gutting me. She beamed and went back to her word search. No words.

Jenny reminded me of the beauty of this life. Being in her presence is like breathing in life itself. When the human heart is completely pure… that is Jenny.

Thank you, sweet Jenny, for the many blessings you have given me on that flight. I will think of you often, and also in my work as I consider customer experience during air travel. You are a very dear part of the journey. I am now getting curious about how airports, airlines and businesses show love to differently-abled people.

XO, Erin