I get to celebrate a special miracle when my very cherished ring–lost during a long and challenging cross-country flight–is actually found
and turned in by an as yet unidentified airline cleaning person.
The overwhelming heat continues. There are a few hours each evening and sometimes (when I awaken early enough) another few in the mornings when the more moderate temperatures allow for “normal life” to unfold. I do chores and errands then.
The middle hours of these hot days I continue to spend mostly meandering along the tide lines of the Pacific Ocean. I watch the water and the shore birds as they come and go. The moisture, sounds and rhythms of the sea nourish and replenish my parched body. Some days there’s the magical blessing of glimpsing schools of dolphins at play not far off the shore. Other days there are only the endless, gloriously shimmering blue skies and the always-changing panorama of endless varieties of clouds. I feel so completely out-of-time. As if I could be anyplace in the world, near any ocean. Far removed from my ordinary life.
Of course, my own ordinary “slow lane” life is already quite far removed from what usually constitutes “ordinary life.” Still, there’s a deep and special kind of nourishment that comes with stepping away from it, even for these brief hours. The fact that none of the usual hassles of packing and “real travel” are involved in these breaks makes them, for me, all the more refreshing despite their briefness. I feel so blessed, so grateful.
And then, this past month there was some “real travel.” My usual August long-weekend trip to visit my dad, step mom and extended family in Southern Florida. Not quite the place to travel to in late August. Especially for someone already feeling done in by heat! Yet, trying to get there twice a year always involves one visit during the heat of summer.
The trip this time was quite a journey. The airport shuttle picked me up at 8:30 A.M. for my 1:35 P.M. flight out of Los Angeles. With only two other pickups we reached the airport quite early. I wandered around reading and doing phone visits with friends from 11:00 A.M. till we boarded the flight to Fort Lauderdale at a little past 1:00. Off the ground at last!
Well, not quite. We taxied to our runway but then instead of taking off we (and many other flights) were grounded on the field because of an intense weather system outside of Las Vegas–right on our flight path. For over two hours, the captain and cabin crew gave us regular updates. We were waiting for the system to subside. When air traffic was finally convinced that it wasn’t likely to subside, we waited for new routings to be planned to avoid the storms.
Just after we were given word that a take off might indeed be imminent, the cabin crew announced that one of our passengers was in the midst of a medical emergency. She asked if there were a physician, nurse or EMT on board to offer assistance. After some minutes a woman physician joined the cabin crew in the back galley with the ill man.
Not long after that came word that we’d have to taxi over to where a ramp could be brought to the plane so that paramedics could take the man to get the serious medical attention he needed. (Apparently they thought he might be having a stroke). Several hefty male passengers carried the man and his luggage up from the back of the plane for a hand-off to the paramedics.
Finally, a little more than 2 1/2 hours late, and amid a huge ovation from the filled 737, we were airborne toward our stopover in Dallas/Fort Worth. Amazingly, throughout the long wait, the whole plane was filled with a party atmosphere. There were just a couple of folks that were really crabby. For the rest of the crowd there was a whole lot of chatter and bonhomie. The two college boys in my row spent the whole time clowning around with me, with the delightful Mrs. Missouri/Mrs. America runner up sitting behind us and with her 7-year-old triplets, and their pre-teen sister. There were endless games, teasing and sharing with all their travel toys (including Mrs. Missouri’s rhinestone tiara, a legion of Beanie Baby Animals and a fleet of mini cars and trucks). I was totally cracked out of my usual “in-my-own-separate-bubble” way of being on an airplane.
Once underway there were free cocktails, a free movie and lots of good-humored comic relief from the crew. They carried on hilariously about the irony of the title of the free film–“Anger Management.” Since 9/11, people seem to be meeting unavoidable hassles like the ones we had on this flight with so much more patience and perspective than they might have pre 9/11. We are so immediately grateful that it’s not about some terrorists’ act. And, it certainly helped enormously that we were constantly being given information and updates rather than being left to our imaginations.
In Dallas it turned out that those of us continuing on to Fort Lauderdale had to change planes after all-our crew had reached the limit of their “shift.” Several folks had of course missed their connecting flights and were having to stay over in Dallas. Still a kind of over-tired hilarity prevailed. We were all exchanging “war stories” with the passengers in the new plane. They’d been waiting for us to turn up so that they could finally get off the ground after waiting, relatively clueless, for over 2 hours.
The last leg of the flight was seemingly uneventful. I’d called ahead (on one of the college guys’ cell phones) to alert my folks–and through them, the car service that was to pick me up–of the delay. In the end we were only 2 hours late. I reached my parents’ house at 2:00 A.M. eastern time, after 14 1/2 hours en route. We shared sleepy hugs and all went off to bed.
As soon as I began to undress, I discovered that my favorite ring, the one to which I’m most sentimentally attached, was no longer on my finger! I was so distraught. Incredulous. How could that have happened? I couldn’t believe I hadn’t noticed earlier that my index finger was bare. When/where/how had the ring come off my finger? I immediately called the driver hoping to catch him before he went to sleep. He promised to look in the car once morning came.
From total exhaustion, I moved into total wired-ness. I dumped everything out of my carry-on pack and my purse. Dumped everything out of all the zipper bags in each of them. Pored through everything that I had been poking around in during the flight: my snacks, my magazines, my flight-comforts. No ring,
I reassembled it all and then tore it all apart again in the dimly lighted guestroom. Then I did it all a third time. I just couldn’t believe that the ring was really gone. I was so agitated and upset. I couldn’t calm down. I kept replaying the memory-tape of all the hand washing after trips to the bathroom, all the poking around for food and amusements, all the repeated lifting and hoisting of my carry-ons. Searching, searching for the moment that I might have missed noticing when the ring was first gone. Overwhelmed with a kind of frantic disbelief.
Amazingly, I never for a moment gave myself any flak about having lost it. Not one word of the critical, battering and shaming I might once have launched upon myself. Just tender, sympathetic, “poor honey” murmurings to my so sad and bereft self.
I kept reminding myself that if the ring were truly gone there would ultimately, as always, be some gift for me in the middle of this upsetting experience. I had not a clue what that might be. And, I found myself unwilling to put any energy into speculating.
I kept having a strong sense that it would magically turn up, that it wasn’t going to be lost forever. I couldn’t sort out if this was just a story that I was inventing to calm myself so that I could get some sleep for my poor exhausted being. Or, whether it was really a premonition. The thought that I’d lost it while on the plane was too much to bear just then. That would mean it was really gone. So I chose to believe that the driver would find it the next morning where he checked the car that had driven me from the airport. Holding this vision I finally could, after almost 2 1/2 hours of agitating, calm down enough to fall asleep.
The next morning was a rush of getting ready and heading off to join the rest of the family for lunch at the coast hosted by my vibrant, almost 93 year old Great Aunt Sophie. From there it was off to her newly redecorated apartment and hours of lively card playing. Every one commiserated with me over the missing ring. Somehow, I was never tempted to call to check my folks’ message machine. So it wasn’t until we’d returned home at a little after seven that evening that I learned the ring hadn’t been found in the car. Such a let down!
Rather reluctantly–really by now convinced my “premonition” had been nothing more than a bit of denial to get me through the night–I called the airline. The agent that took my call turned out to be an incredibly kind, sweet and compassionate soul. As she brought up the record of my flight she exclaimed about the challenging day we’d had. When she heard from me that it had ended with the loss of my cherished ring, she practically burst into tears of sympathetic commiseration and concern. Having recently lost a sentimentally cherished charm bracelet she could empathize fully with how distressingly sad and frustrating it all was.
She gave me the number for the Fort Lauderdale Lost and Found. Then, because it was almost closing time for that office, she decided to contact them directly to see what she could find out. It took a while. She kept coming back on the line to keep me reassured that she was still on it and to apologize for how long it was taking. At some point she asked me for a description of the ring. Then, after another bit of waiting, she came back on the line to tell me, after an appropriately dramatic pause, that my ring had been found! She was, I think, almost as excited as I was! We both yelped with cheers of exuberance! She arranged for it to be stored in the cashier’s safe at the airport until I could retrieve it the next day.
My folks and I were beside ourselves sitting at the kitchen table beaming with amazement. It felt like such an incredible, unbelievable miracle! If the Lost and Found hadn’t been closing, we’d have driven over right then to get it. Instead we called everyone to report about the miraculous outcome, going over and over the story and our disbelief that the outcome could be so wonderful.
I’ve sat in planes before during intermediate stops and seen the unbelievably fast paced hard work of the teams of cleaners who straighten things up for us travelers. For the most part these contracted cleaners are women of color, clearly being paid not much more minimum wage and likely without much in the way of benefits. Being poor doesn’t mean one is not also honest. Yet, especially since recently reading Barbara Ehrenrich’s Nickel and Dimed in America, I couldn’t stop thinking about the challenge it might have been to someone having so little to come upon something of value left behind so carelessly by someone who, likely having so much more available to them, could be so unmindful.
Yet, the person who came upon my ring on the floor of the plane had been both caring and honest enough to want to do what they could to help the ring find its way back to me. That the ring had had to pass through at least two and possibly three sets of hands before being stowed at the Lost and Found made it all the more magical. I felt so held and blessed by Spirit. So profoundly grateful.
I went off to the airport the next day with a note of thanks and a reward check ready for the name of my benefactor. When they handed me the envelope with my ring, the only information on it was mine. No name of the finder. And, no one seemed to have a clue about who it might have been. Again I thought of Nickel and Dimed, and of the persistent invisibility of service workers in our country.
I’m still working at finding this heartful person. After several discouraging phone calls, I actually got to speak with and thank the young man at Baggage Claim who received the ring from the cleaning service. Though he, too, didn’t know anything about the finder, he did give me the address of the contract cleaning service at the airport.
I’ve written to Delta and to the cleaning service to acknowledge my appreciation of the quality of service, my gratitude and my strong wish to be able to thank this very special person directly. It may take a while but I’m hopeful!
And, this precious ring that was, at the time that I bought it, an extravagant, impulsive gift to myself to acknowledge a long siege of deep inner work completed is now even more precious to me than ever.
Originally published September 2003
