Conversation on a Plane

If you read my last blog, you know that I was recently visiting family in the big city of Toronto. To get there, I had to take two flights. My first flight was only an hour long, but it was noteworthy. I usually just pull out a book or put on my headphones and see what's playing on the TV, but I felt obligated to start a conversation with my seatmate. So I started with a simple question: "Are you going home or going to visit?" And then she started to talk. She was going home, but really, she was just going to visit. Well, really she was going there to pick up her kids cause she had just moved to the valley and they were coming to live with her...well, really, they were her grandkids because her daughter had died. Well, really her two daughters had both died and now she was just left with one son and his family. He lived in her old home community and she was looking forward to seeing him and her grandbabies.  She showed me pictures. She talked. It was quite the story and so sad, and yet, she herself wasn't sad. She had hope in the future. She had a good new marriage. She loved her grandchildren and could hardly wait to bring them home with her. She was looking forward to registering them in school and finding a new community and joining some pow wows. Before I knew it, the hour was done and she was getting off to get a different connecting flight. I gave her my phone number, saying that I knew how hard it could be to be in a new community and I had really enjoyed connecting with her and wished her well. I don't know if she will ever contact me; I doubt I would if I were her, but even the possibility would help me to not feel completely alone in a new community. So that was my experiment in being deliberate about relationships on a day when I thought I would be travelling "alone."