stepping stone sunday: see the angel beside you

Last Friday morning, I had a lot on my mind as I boarded a plane for Chicago. A visit to my doctor the day before had resulted in an immediate ultrasound and biopsy and blood tests. In a hurry. Like, now. Like, don't leave and come back but we need to do this before you take another breath. I cried in that small room while the doctor explained what was going on. She sat me back down until I was calm enough to leave.

I wouldn't find out for at least a week, she said. My friend Nina made me laugh with her reaction to that news: "What? They can put man on the (expletive deleted) Moon, but they can't get labs back in an hour?"

And in that hard week, life had to go on. The bag lunches needed packing, the trips to conferences of nurses and librarians had to be taken, the new book had to be worked on, the living needed to be lived. But it was a hard day, that Thursday. I saw myself leaving John and Emma and Tess behind and felt helpless in the face of it. And harder still to wake up the next morning and leave for Chicago to give a speech about living as if you only have thirty-seven days to live. I thought for a moment about canceling, but knew I couldn't. I had a dinner planned at Topolobampo that evening with friends and thought about at least canceling that, but didn't. I decided to go, marching forward into uncertain days, like we all do all the time, except mostly we don't know it, don't remember just how uncertain they all are.

I boarded the tiny plane, so small a metal tube it should be outlawed, and found myself in a window seat. I never sit in window seats because (particularly on a teency weency plane), my claustrophobia kicks in almost immediately if someone larger than Kate Moss sits beside me in the aisle seat. I had a lot on my mind and was in no mood to talk to a seatmate. I needed to think. And obsess. And plan how I was going to get my whole house cleaned in time for the funeral and write a few more books before going.

I hoped the seat would stay empty. I couldn't imagine making small talk. Instead, a tall young man with a big jacket sat down, immediately smothering me. I held my book in my lap to distract myself: "The Devil's Highway" by Luis Urrea. He said, "that book looks interesting," and I nodded without committing to an answer, wanting to return to my hot internal obsession about my future–or lack of it. He stood up and took his jacket off, making me feel a little less claustrophobic in the small space beside him.

"Can I tell you something?" he asked. I turned to face him. "Sure," I said, slowly.

"I am terrified," he said quietly. "I've been drinking water like crazy, but my mouth is still so dry because I'm terrified of flying."

Years before, I was on a tiny plane late at night in Wyoming or Montana or one of those rectangular states out West and we were in terrible turbulence. My seatmate, a young cowboy, talked incessantly to me during the turbulence and it was only afterward that I realized he had done it to make me feel less scared, a true gift.

I put my book down and started talking to my seatmate. He hadn't flown since he was really little, but his grandmother had died and he needed to get to the funeral. His name was Mason. I asked him questions about his family and his schoolwork–he is in graduate school studying educational administration and might get his PhD in literature. He was one of the smartest people I've met, intuitive and well-read and just smart in the very best way. I kept talking to him as we took off and I could recognize his feelings of fear as we swept up into the sky, through bumpy clouds. The two bells indicating we had reached 10,000 feet sounded and he quickly faced me, "What's that for?" he asked. I realized that I needed to narrate the flight for him, and so I did. And in so doing, I had no time to worry about my own fears.

And so I narrated, realizing as I did that I know every moment of those flights, from the slight upswept feeling as you rise and escape gravity for a moment, to the two bells and the announcement that will follow, to the sound when the wheels are put into place for landing, to the four bells that indicate that you are beginning your descent. For the whole 35 minutes of the flight, we talked, with me explaining what would happen next. "Soon you'll hear a loud noise that will sound like the bottom is falling out of the plane," I said. "But that's just the wheels being lowered for landing."

The sound startled him. "I'm glad you told me," he said, "because that would've really freaked me out."

As we landed in Atlanta to catch our connecting flights, I asked, "Where are you going today, Mason?" "To Chicago," he said. To Chicago, I thought to myself.

"What a coincidence," I said, "me, too."

"Are you on the 1:30 flight?" I asked.

He pulled out his boarding pass for his connecting flight. I looked at it with him, stunned by what I saw. "Yes," he said, "the 1:30 one. You?"

"Yes," I said. "I'm on your flight. Take a look at your seat assignment."

"28B," he said.

"Now look at my seat assignment," I said as I unfolded my boarding pass.

My seat was 28C. We had not only been seatmates on the way to Atlanta, and not only were we on the same connecting flight, but we were seated side by side for the flight to Chicago, too.

That, my friends, was something more than a coincidence. That was nothing short of the provision of an angel. For both of us.

Mason and I made our way through the Atlanta airport train to our second flight. He was happy to have me guide him through the crowds and onto the train. "I wasn't sure how I would get there," he said. I showed him the way to the gate and left him to get some food while I waited at the gate. My name was called–my upgrade had come through. I went to the gate agent and explained that I'd prefer to stay in my original seat–she could give the upgrade to someone else.

And so we flew, side by side, talking, all the way to Chicago with me narrating the flight again. Two bells, four bells, no need to pay for your Coke. And here's the miracle: when we went above the clouds, he couldn't contain his amazement and wonder at what it looked like up there, looking down on the tops of clouds. "WHOA," he said, "That's incredible! It looks like an all-white landscape with mountains!"

To sit beside him was to see again. I told his story in my speech the next day in Chicago, right after reading "Say Wow When You See a Bus" to the hundreds of nurses gathered at the conference.

It was a gift, sitting beside this young very smart man, so full of wonder and fear and excitement and more.

He thanked me as we landed, for helping him.

I imagine he thought I was his angel for those two flights, but as we went our separate ways after landing in Chicago and I watched him walk away, I knew he was mine, instead.

This week, be an angel for someone. Let them be an angel for you, a stepping stone forward into their week. And know that sometimes the angel you need is the one who needs you. And sometimes, just sometimes, they are already right beside you for the trip.

(All the tests were negative, I found out a week later).