What Was

Yesterday was kind of a peculiar day. A normal day in most ways, but it marked an ending. A beginning, too, but as beginnings usually are, that’s cloudy, unfocused. What’s next is unknown. It remains to be seen. The ending, however, is known. It’s a clean cut – an excision.

Most days do that. They begin and they end. Some endings are good, some not so good, some wonderful, some bad. I don’t know what kind of an ending yesterday was. For me, it was pretty ordinary. For others, it was momentous. In all cases, time will tell but, for now, this morning and the foreseeable future, it’s up in the air.

No matter, good or bad, it got me to thinking of my past, my experiences.

Like most people I go through life not really paying attention most of the time. I get from here to there and back but, if I were asked to say what happened, I’d almost always be pretty hard pressed on the details.

‘What did you do between 9:35 and 10:35 yesterday morning?’ Uh… I was a work.

‘What, specifically were you doing at 9:52?’ Blank. I know where I was, but I could not say, with precision, what I was doing. I doubt, unless it was a monumental moment, anyone could.

On the other hand, there are those monumental times. Those easily recalled moments that, when prompted, act like a pop-up book of memory and images. For me, almost always, they’re the bad moments.

Why is that? Why, out of all the life experiences that I have had, are the bad moments the most memorable? Why is it that I can recall those moments with greatest clarity?

It makes me wonder. Am I unusual? I don’t think so. I don’t think it’s that, at all. I just think those moments are the Teaching moments. The comeuppance moments that remind us that, no matter what we might think, we are not entirely in control. It is a moment of Grace – an opportunity to accept and stop worrying over what you cannot do anything about.

One of my worst experiences was on an airplane. My daughter, who was four at the time, and I were flying up to Seattle to go see my sister. Even though, for us, it wasn’t common to fly, it was also fairly routine, something I had done occasionally.

At San Francisco the plane was delayed. Rumor circulated through the lounge that it was late on its first leg because of a mechanical issue.

Okay. Something needed fixed but they wouldn’t fly the plane if there was a big problem would they? I went back to trying to keep my four-year old occupied without disturbing those around us.

Ninety minutes after we were supposed to have left, the plane arrived. Deplaning, cleaning, preparing, that all took another hour.

We boarded, listened to the safety spiel and took off.

My daughter was excited, staring out the window at the ground falling away. Asking questions like a typewriter on overdrive. Rat-a-tat-tat-tat until, finally, I diverted her by pointing things out and describing what we could see.

All is well until… boom over Southern Oregon there is a loud explosive sound from outside, muffled, and the plane jerks – hard.

I have never heard a large group of people get so quiet so fast. It wasn’t silent before, but in a nanosecond it was. Pin-drop on carpet silent with everyone looking at their neighbors as if to ask, ‘did you hear it, too?’ A collective ‘oh shit’ moment. The flight crew is suddenly animated, hurrying up and down the aisle, peering out the windows. ‘What was that?’ That was the universal question.

It was an almost breaking news story. We had lost an engine – one of three on the plane.

To a pilot with a multi-engine plane, losing an engine is worrisome but not scary. Most planes, even big ones, can manage to get along on one engine so long as everything else is working. It’s called design redundancy. Give it more than it needs, in case.

The bigger issue is the controls. What happened to the hydraulic lines? Do they still have rudder for steering, flaps for elevation?

So my daughter and I are in a metal tube, tens of thousands of feet in the air. We are at the mercy of the pilots – are they capable, are they competent?

Ours were. After, perhaps, ten minutes, the pilot announced what we already knew. We had lost an engine, one of three. We had descended to lower altitude and would divert to Portland.

Still, the stewardesses were on high alert, peering and hurrying. In the middle of it, not having the first foggiest clue what’s going on, my child decides she’s thirsty. It is a pedestrian thing, nothing big, nothing out of the ordinary – except for the circumstance. I asked her to wait. She said she can’t. It’ll be a little while. But she’s thirsty now.

If you’re a parent, if you have had only one child, you know the drill.

It’s a calm request at first. Then the hint of a whine creeps into the voice, the face tightens and creases. You try again but it escalates and you know that if you don’t do something, that child is going to get louder and more demanding with each round.

The last thing those several hundred people trapped in that tube who don’t have any control over anything but themselves in those minutes need, is to have a screaming four-year old demanding water. I asked for water. The stewardess gave me a glare that should have left me as a pile of ashes on my seat, but she brought a paper cup of water – from the coffee reservoir, so it tasted like coffee.

My daughter sipped, said it tasted funny. I said it was all they had so she could take it or leave it. She left it, but was satisfied to wait. Mini crisis averted and I turned my attention to the fish fry.

Now, in that little scene are three things:

Normalcy – a young child’s lack of awareness outside of themselves.

Irritation – the glare of someone thinking ‘geez, woman! Don’t you know we could all die?’

Acceptance – yes, I perfectly understood the circumstance and the danger. I also recognized that there was not a blessed thing I could do to change the outcome. Why let my daughter, and the others around us if the tea kettle whistle blew because she thought she was being ignored or dismissed, suffer?

Call it selfish, call it a last request fulfilled, call it what you will, but in the overall scheme of things, it was a tiny thing. It probably isn’t something that woman, and certainly none of the other passengers on that flight that day remember – but it’s vivid in my mind.

Why? I don’t know. I wasn’t afraid. I was worried, concerned, but I wasn’t afraid. There was no point in being afraid – I was stuck, trapped, and totally out of any chance of control. So it wasn’t fear that tattooed that memory into my brain.

There are other memories like that. Most are the not so good variety but, for whatever reason, that was yesterday’s strongest memory. The one presented while I drove home thinking of what was.

We survived, obviously. After about forty tense minutes the plane landed safely in Portland. Along the runway, every few dozen yards, was a line of fire engines – all ready to spray the plane with fire retardant, if needed. As we passed, each fell into line behind us, following us to the gate.

We came to a stop and, as soon as the plane stopped moving, the entire cabin exploded in applause for a Job Well Done for the flight crew. Spontaneous and well-deserved and the rest, as they say, is ‘history’.

It was a good ending to what could have been a terrible day.

As we deplaned the stewardess offered each passenger a $25 discount off our next ticket. I kid you not. $25. I don’t know how many people accepted it. I didn’t. I couldn’t believe that after that, that was the best they would do.

I called the family to let them know we were okay – before the news did it for us. We raced around the terminal, from airline to airline to get seats for the next leg and, ultimately, got to our destination safely.

We did make the news that night, but as a passing comment instead of a headline. And that’s what was, in that time.

Yesterday is another What Was for others. I just hope they arrive safely, too.

Best~

Philippa

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