On my recent flight back from Iowa to New York, I sat on an airport runway in a small plane, along with 49 other passengers. There were at least two infants on the plane, plus several young children. Since it was the day after Christmas, most people had a lot of carry-on luggage and the compartments were completely full. Many had to check their carry-on luggage at the gate, as is often necessary when there isn’t room for larger pieces which don’t fit at all in the compartments on small aircraft. The fact that the plane was full forced many to gate check luggage that, under different circumstances, would have normally fit.

When we first knew we would be waiting for at least an hour, I vowed to myself to stay positive. The woman in front of me was the mother of one of the infants onboard and she remarked to the flight attendant that she hoped it wouldn’t be too long, as she had the baby’s formula in her carry-on luggage, which she had to gate check as there wasn’t any room. She said that her baby would be waking up soon and would be hungry.

Around me I could hear faint chuckles of other passengers and I could just read their nervous thoughts of enduring a screaming, hungry baby if we didn’t get off the ground and to our destination soon. Next to the sleeping infant was a young girl, who had just turned seven years old on Christmas Day. I will call her Emily. Emily was traveling with her father, a non-custodial parent, to see her grandparents in New York, along with her younger sister, age 5.

Our delay ended up being three hours. Although we weren’t doing any flying, the time seemed to be, as I ended up talking with Emily’s father about life after divorce, being a non-custodial parent, and the upcoming Iowa caucuses. For much of the time, his two daughters slept, their bodies curled up and twisted like human pretzels in the small seats.

During the last hour of our three hour wait, the baby woke up and Emily immediately “shared” her doll with her, distracting her for a bit from the hunger pains that soon would follow. The flight attendant was able to give the baby water, which also helped to delay the inevitable. Only in the very last twenty minutes did the baby really start to fuss. On top of it all, we had been served all the liquids that were available on the plane already and there was no water in the bathroom, plus one of the air conditioner fans was not working. So it was hot and stuffy on the plane, which is enough for anyone to feel uncomfortable.

Emily’s playful, positive spirit got a lot of us through those three hours. She said the most amazing things with the innocence of a child, with a touch of “let’s pretend I’m older” thrown in. After all, she is the older sister. Her father told me how she told him it’s only 6 more years and she’d be a teenager! We laughed at the thought, although I think he’s a bit nervous about having two teenage daughters in six to eight years.

During these three hours, Emily could have also been cranky, as some children might get, but she didn’t even go there. Her joyful presence was contagious and most of us around her were smiling and chuckling from her positive spirit.

When they announced that we were returning to the gate, Emily grabbed her doll and questioned why we had to be on the plane so long and asked, “Was this a practice?” I laughed and said, “Yeah, it’s like a practice airline boarding drill; just like the fire and tornado drills you do at school.”

She just smiled and gathered her things with no complaints and no fuss. We all de-boarded the plane to find out that most people (myself included) would have to wait another day to fly as the weather was bad in many places.

I smiled a lot that day, thinking about Emily and especially her idea of a “practice” with airplane boarding and delays. I thought about how different our reactions to airport delays would be if we all took her attitude of “just practicing” to heart and exercised a bit of patience. We wouldn’t be expecting the plane to take off, so we all might just go with the drill without complaining! The added benefit would be that if we had more practice at this, we would learn to get it right all the time. After all, practice makes perfect!

Barbara A. Clark has been a professional in higher education for over 25 years. She holds a Master’s degree in Counseling from the University of Iowa and completed all course requirements for a Ph.D in International Comparative Education before several life-changing events interrupted her studies. It was during the interruption that Barbara discovered her passion for service to the world through love and intention. She is passionate about her new journey as “The Spirited Strider,” serving the world in love, one step at a time.

Website: http://spiritedstrider.googlepages.com
Blog: http://spiritedstrider.blogspot.com