The following is a true story from an international fight I was on back in 2006. It was his voice that caught my attention. I knew I had heard it somewhere before, but from where I struggled to remember. But then I started to pay attention to what he was saying and not just to the familiarity of his voice.
It can be hard traveling alone. We travel alone all our lives actually, which is probably why we love to have our travel companions; our wives, our husbands, our lovers. Even when we may not love them with that same passion of youth, we bond and hang together; us against the unknown.
So, what is the fate when one partner is gone and the other moves along the path alone? I saw such a man today, on the plane taking his seat next to a sleeping stranger; an elderly man with his neatly folded piece of paper, creased and wrinkled, much like the storied hands that held it. From my clandestine position in the row behind I could see he had printed, in bold, his flight number, just so he could see it plainly. Underlined, in red, the gate numbers and change-points for his multi-legged journey. Through his thick glasses he pressed the airline magazine, which had been provided in his seat back, close to his face and poured over the airport terminal drawings displayed in the back pages. Several times he would look up and stop to query the flight attendant as to which gate we would be arriving at, how far down the concourse to the gate of his next flight, and would he have enough time – as he had to tell her, he could not walk as fast as once could. And he just had to apologize to her, for asking all these questions; as he had usually relied on his wife to plan and guide their trips; the wife who obviously was no longer there. She had passed just a few weeks before, he confessed. Now he had only sleeping strangers by his side.
The attendant, in her kindness kneeled down to look him in the eye, answered each question, with composure, respect and a smile, but not a tear – which was more than I could muster from the seat behind. Maybe it was because I realized that I myself am only one seat behind.
Then I remembered from where I had heard him. He was a nationally recognized network announcer. If you are my age, you would know him too. We grew up listening to his voice on one of the then three only national networks. His story is more reminder that we are not all that different no matter our station in life.
Let Me Tell You a Story 