Important work
The last to board the plane from Seattle to Dallas were a woman and three
children. “Oh please don’t sit next to me,” I thought. “I’ve got so much work
to do.” But a moment later an eleven-year-old girl and her nine-year-old
brother were climbing over the empty seat next to me while the woman and a
four-year-old boy sat behind. Almost immediately the older children started
bickering while the child behind intermittently kicked my seat. Every few
minutes the boy would ask his sister, “Where are we now?” “Shut up!” she’d
snap and their new round of squirming and whining would ensue.
“Kids have no concept of important work,” I thought, and quietly resented
my predicament. Then I differently had another thought coming from a
father’s heart, against all my testiness up to that moment – so clearly:
“They’re so lovely!” Then I immediately countered to myself: “But these
kids are brats, and I’ve got important work to do”. Then my inner voice
simply replied, “Love them as if they were your children.”
So as to answer his repeated “Where-are-we-now?” question repeatedly, I
turned the screen in front of me to the inflight magazine map, in spite of
concentrating on my important work.
I started to explain our flight path, dividing it into quarter-hour flight
increments and together we estimated when the flight would land in Dallas.
Soon they were telling me about their trip to Seattle to see their father who
was in the hospital. As we talked they continuously asked about flying,
navigation, science and grown-ups’ views about life – things that they heard
or saw somewhere before. The time passed quickly and my “important”
work was left undone.
As we were preparing to land, I seemed to remember something and asked
how their father was doing now, They grew quiet and the boy simply said,
“He died.”
