Though I skipped a day I can’t ignore what happened on my long journey home. The day began early with a 6am alarm. I’d just become acclimated to the time change and suddenly I’m forcing myself to wake up and get going.
It was hard to say goodbye to my friend. I’d not only become accustomed to the time difference but also to her life routine. It was nice to get up in the morning and sit at the island table, eat some grapefruit and have a glass of tea with one of my closest friends and talk about life. Of course this isn’t her usual routine either but together we made it our ‘norm’ and it was hard to give up.
The flight to Frankfurt was uneventful. I made it through the customs checkpoint and security with ease and was on my way to the gate for my final leg of the trip when a police officer who was idly standing in the hallway called out, “Excuse me!”
Startled I stopped walking and looked at him. I was getting along just fine not saying a word because I found if you just acted like you knew what you were doing all was good. 😉 He walked over to me and said, “Are you an American?”
“Yes,’ I said.
“Follow me,” he said and turned toward a hallway.
Blindly I followed him and for that short 10 second walk in the hallway I had the thought, “Where is he taking me? What if he isn’t an officer and he is going to push me into a closest and hurt me?” My chest tightened with anxiety. Then we entered a room and there were two more male officers along with a female officer. It was a legit pat down security check.
Without saying a word, except to answer the questions she asked I did as I was told and took off my sweater, shoes, etc and went through the procedure. They let me go but when I made it out of the room and back into that hallway by myself the anxiety that had formed became a full panic attack. I couldn’t stop the tears and had to go into a bathroom to let them flow freely.
It was crazy. I felt crazy.
I had an hour till the next flight so I chose to grab a bite, write and do my best to work through it all. By the time I was in my seat in the back of the plane I was back to ‘normal’ and ready to get home. There was a young man that set next to me on the flight, we had an empty seat in-between us and for some reason we ended up picking up conversation.
His name is Ras and he was coming home to Houston from having been in Milan for 2 months for his modeling career. A few hours into the flight when we realized that the only movies were playing were the four or five to choose from (it was an old plane so the movies were on a DVD that the attendant would start over every three hours) we started to talk about life and what his dreams were as a model, etc. The conversation ended up going many directions and I found that I might have some connections for him as well. At one point he made the comment “It is great how I was worried about this one aspect of what I was going to do and here I meet you and you might be able to help me.”
Soon enough the conversation turned to the spiritual. It was great to have this conversation about how God Shows Up in our lives, especially with a young 22 year old man who has his entire life of opportunity still to come.
About five hours into the 10.5 hour flight an attendant gets on the intercom and says, “Is there a medical doctor on the flight? We need medical assistance.”
Turns out there was a man about eight rows in front of us that had a seizure in his sleep. He couldn’t wake up and he wasn’t coherent. Someone that sat near him said they heard is blood sugar was low so that was a good sign . When he had the seizure he had urinated and soaked the chair so they had to pull it up and put it in a biohazard waste bag. Imagine, all of this was pretty chaotic. Ras and I thought for sure they would divert the plane to get him help but apparently by the time we were over land again (Canada) he was stable enough to make the duration of the flight.
Getting home on Texas ground couldn’t come soon enough and resting my eyes in my bed was like heaven. But by 4 am I was wide awake. There was plenty to do to get my family’s life back in order so I hit the ground running. Haven’t slept since and the fog of jet lag is clouding my vision.
It was a long journey home but I survived just as I have so many other things in my life. I just had to take it one moment at a time, walk through it and remember God has my back. 😉
Blessings
Shannon