Hello. I am that very tired-looking older woman in the window seat, the one who listened to your daughter screaming for 45 minutes in the middle of the night while your son thrashed around and kicked me nonstop until they both finally, FINALLY gave up and fell asleep. At which point there was no hope of me asking you all to move so I could use the lavatory, not without causing some kind of violent uprising among the other passengers.

There’s something I need to explain to you. Perhaps you noticed that, as your son fussed and moaned and his feet rhythmically banged up against my tray table, I was quietly crying as well. And judging from the expression on your face, you probably thought I was weeping because you and your offspring had made my journey so intolerably miserable. You probably thought I hated you, and that I was mentally composing letters to my people in congress demanding new laws forbidding anyone under the age of 30 to ever board an airplane again while simultaneously calculating a way to shove the three of you out of the emergency exit without attracting the attention of the flight attendants.

If that’s what you thought, I’m so s orry. You couldn’t have been more wrong. The reason I couldn’t fight back the tears was not because I hated sitting next to you.It was because of the way your little boy’s feet nuzzled together in my lap like a couple of soft warm pink and brown puppies when he finally dozed off.

Those small feet reminded me that I was leaving my own little boys so far behind, not just in miles but in years. Perfect little toes like that are gone from me forever, and as I stroked and patted your son to soothe his anxiety and discomfort while you busied yourself with his sister’s distress, the grief of missing my own children grew so enormous, my heart finally broke into a million pieces and hence the unseemly transcontinental sobs.

I really wish I could have done more to help you. I wish I could have shielded you from the glares and the guilt you seemed to be feeling. My boys are two years apart, and I remember all too well what it was like to take long flights alone with them at that age. So, no doubt, do the several hundred other passengers and crew members who had to endure our presence on those flights. I really meant it when I told you their crying and kicking didn’t bother me at all, except that I felt painful empathy for their and your discomfort. It was not a big deal that I helped you carry your bags off the plane in Dallas, though you thanked me profusely. I was just selfishly trying to do my little part to make the world the sort of place I want to live in.

You were strong and brave and gracious and dignified throughout the ordeal, and I admired you immensely.
Your children are beautiful, and I could tell they would have been strong and brave and gracious and dignified too, like you, if they hadn’t been so young and under so much stress. They will be in time.

I hope you made your connection and arrived safely in Chicago with your faculties intact. I hope there was someone there to help you. I wish we lived in a world where EVERYONE was there to help you. Maybe some day.
Meanwhile, treasure them while they’re small. I know it’s hard to believe, but really: it doesn’t last very long at all.

- The Old Lady in Seat 24F

P.S. While I’m dashing off open letters to my fellow travelers, here’s another one.

To the pharmaceutical rep with the expensive Italian shoes in the Dallas airport who was shouting into his cell phone, his voice dripping with disdain, “I’m about to catch a flight to, let’s see, a place called Lafayette Louisiana. Hahaha! Yeah, it probably could be worse, maybe, but I’m not exactly sure how, hahahaha!”

Dear Guy:

Up yours.

- A Proud Louisianan