BY SEAN DIETRICH
OPINION —
We were sitting on a plane. Awaiting takeoff. I am convinced that if you live wrongly, if you treat your fellow man poorly, if you are selfish, if you are not a good person, you will die and wake up in Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport.
You will be condemned to find yourself in the TSA line on a major holiday weekend. Officials will compel you to remove your shoes, belt, jacket, eyeglasses, insulin pump, pacemaker, and you shall be frisked.
You will hold up your pants with one hand while a stranger who is exhibiting signs of severe occupational depression gropes your groin region. And everything will be going fine, until your wife trips the metal detector with her Swiss Army knife.
But, thankfully, we were all finished with TSA. I was bound for the Frozen North. I was sitting in my Barbie-sized airline seat, practicing good armrest etiquette.
Across the aisle was an elderly woman. She had a boy with her. He was maybe 15.
You could tell she was nervous because she looked pale. She was sort of hyperventilating. Trembling. She looked like she was about to vomit, which worried me because I have a strong involuntary empathetic regurgitation reflex.
“Nervous?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“First time?” I said.
“No, I’ve been nervous lots of times.”
I liked this woman.
The boy held her hand tightly. He kept saying, “It’s okay.”
“I’m fine,” she kept saying. Which is what people who aren’t fine always say.
Then the boy started singing. It was only light humming at first. But then he sang slightly louder. His voice never grew loud enough to bother the passengers, but it was enough for her to hear.
She sang along. Her voice was low. They were squeezing hands. The woman’s eyes were shut tightly. She kissed the boy’s hand.
We underwent the launch sequence. It was a jarring takeoff. Lots of shaking. Lots of rattling. A flight attendant eventually came to ask whether the woman was okay.
“I’m fine,” she insisted.
The boy never quit squeezing her hand, stroking her lily white skin. And when we landed, the boy was still singing softly during touchdown.
I saw them getting off the plane after our flight. He was walking alongside her. She was holding him for balance.
A flight attendant pulled the boy aside and said, “You’re a very good grandson.”
“Oh, I’m not her grandson,” he said. “She just looked like she needed a friend.”
The Kid in You
Do this. Close your eyes. Take a deep breath. And remember what it was like to be a kid. Go ahead. I’ll wait.
Dive deep into your brain and locate your mental elementary school yearbook. Flip through the pages. Find that cute black-and-white photo of yourself with that gap-toothed smile and enormous ears.
Now hold that yearbook picture in your mind.
Look how precious you are. Look how happy.
Remember how great it was? Remember how uncomplicated it was, being a kid? Remember how your only occupation in this world—your highest ambition, your ultimate purpose, was to seek out and locate refined white sugar?
Remember sitting in Mrs. Welch’s Sunday school class as she played an upright piano and everyone sang “He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands” as Charlie Waters picked his nose so aggressively he was literally touching his own brain matter? Remember how you actually believed the lyrics you were singing?
Recall how nothing bothered you. Even big stuff, serious stuff, it barely affected you. Sure, you had pain sometimes. But mostly, you didn’t worry. Even critical injuries didn’t bother you.
You could fall off your bike, lose a tooth or break your arm until a jagged piece of your humerus was poking through the skin. You’d cry. Then get back on your bike and start pedaling home to Mama.
She’d hold you. Kiss your head. And somehow, deep in your heart, you weren’t that worried. Because you knew it was all going to be okay.
If you’re having a hard time remembering how immune to fear you were, try remembering chicken pox. Chicken pox is a life threatening illness. But you never knew that back then.
Whenever you or your friends got chicken pox, you never thought “death.” Chicken pox simply meant you got to stay home from school and watch reruns of “I Love Lucy.”
But then you grew up. Then you got wise. You started worrying. Real Life steps in and shatters illusions of safety and security. Like a hammer on plate glass.
Suddenly, life is not about sugar and fun. Life is about security. About having enough. About what you’re going to eat. What you’re going to wear. Where you’re going live.
Year after year, as you age, you abandon the idea that everything will turn out all right. You’re becoming an informed adult now, kiddo. And the more you know, the more you wish you didn’t. Welcome to reality.
But I want you to bring back the childhood yearbook picture. That photo of yourself. The grainy black-and-white image.
Now, I want you to focus on sending love to this child. Lots of love. Imagine you have a proverbial cannon of love. Blast that cannon of love at this child. Then, take this child into your arms. Hold him or her tightly. Squeeze them. Don’t let them go.
Remind this baby in your arms that there is nothing to be afraid of. Not pain, not suffering, not injury, not rejection, not failure. Not even death. Especially not death, in fact.
Because no matter how grown up you are, the song lyrics are still true.
Sean Dietrich is a humorist and stand-up storyteller known for his commentary on life in the American South. His column appears weekly in newspapers throughout the U.S. He has authored 18 books and makes appearances on the Grand Ole Opry.
