The Reason

I wanted to leave work early on Tuesday.  My daughter had gone to Urgent Care the night before and she still wasn't feeling well.  If you think the guilt of not being there for your children is something you don't have to worry about once your kids are adults, I'm here to tell you that there's no expiration date on it.  2 weeks old, 22 years old...it's still the same. 

I couldn't leave early on Tuesday because someone else beat me to the punch.  Her child is an actual child and the child had a fever.  And she got to the boss before I did.  I was stuck.  And I was having a difficult time working through the "stuck" feeling.  I don't like feeling negative things so I try to find some way around them.  I search for a better, logical, and more positive perspective.  It was good that my coworker was home with her child.  After all, my child can operate a phone and can call someone else to help her if she needs it.

Huh.  Well, that thought didn't make me feel any better.  

I figured that the positive outlook would show up once I figured out the reason why I had to stay at work.  I believe people are exactly where they are for a reason.  I don't apply this to just big things like, "career," or "home address."  It applies to everything, even minor details like having to stay at work when I want to be home with my sick adult-child.  There's always a reason for things.  That's the way God works in my world.  Situation/Reason.  I hoped The Reason wasn't, Sometimes-Sucky-Things-Just-Happen-So-Get-Over-It-And-Yourself.  I get that reason from time to time.  Because I need it.  

It was about at this point: searching for a reason, not finding a reason, that a flight full of passengers, some making connections to far away destinations, cancelled. 

I work for an airline.  My job is to supervise customer service to passengers.  Not only was I not going where I wanted to be, neither were they.  They weren't happy about this.  I totally understand this feeling, probably more so on a day I wasn't going where I wanted to be either.  Things like cancellations can bring out the worst in people.  People sometimes say such incredibly mean and ignorant things in these situations.  And a few did so on Tuesday, too.  I've had this job a long time so I can take it.  But a couple of hours of it is exhausting.  

Most of the passengers were taken care of at the gate, only a handful remained when I got a call that I had to come to the ticket counter.  One of the passengers had strayed over there and was upset she wasn't getting where she was going when she expected to go and wanted to talk about it.  With a supervisor.  Experience told me this was going to be challenging with a good potential of awful. I really, reeeeaaalllly didn't want to go talk to this person. 

She was sitting on a bench.  I introduced myself and sat down next to her.  She looked to be about 70 years old.  She told me she needed to get to Oakland.  She wanted me to put her on the next flight, which by now, was already full.   I told her that I was sorry but I couldn't get her on the next flight to Oakland.  I can't arbitrarily remove someone to give a seat on a plane to someone else.  I could only offer her what I did to the other passengers.  A later flight.  I asked if she'd had lunch.  I was trying to find a more pleasant way for her to spend the next few hours waiting.

She then looked at me and said, "Two of my children have died and I now get panic attacks."  

We sat there looking in each others eyes for maybe the count of two, but in those two seconds there was an exchange.  A communication.  A something said, but not said with words, between us.  

I said, "I understand."

She whispered, "I know you do."