Seatmates
Seatmates
(C)Melanie Parish, 2013
I met a woman on an airplane this morning. We were sitting next to each other on a very long flight from Buffalo to Phoenix. We said hello and talked about general travel thoughts when we got on board, and then we both napped. Toward the end of the flight we started talking. She was from the Ukraine and had been living in Toronto for 25 years. I asked about how it was for her being an immigrant to Canada. She told me Canada saved her life. She told me how much she loves Canada and about her house she sold, moving to Newmarket, Ontario and retiring. And she said that now she is a little bored. We talked about mothers and mothers-in-law and children. She told me about her first marriage and how she had a mother-in-law that was great but a husband who wasn’t so great and that he had since died. And she told me that she had remarried.
She shared stories of life in the Ukraine. She told me about being there when Chernobyl happened. She told me about not being able to get information and having to talk to family in Canada to find out what was happening in her own country. She told me about not being able to get food in the Ukraine before she left. She said there just wasn’t any food on the shelves to buy. She said now there is food on the shelves but no one has money to it. She told me about her step-son who raises chickens and grows his own vegetables because he has time but no money to buy food. It gave me a glimpse of a swing back to an agrarian society and how it might happen. It was a new and interesting thought to me.
I felt connection from sharing the intimate details of our lives and our hearts. She was kind and passionate about her family. I felt a little pang of disappointment as we left that I wouldn’t connect again with the lovely woman with the bright blue eyes, the mother in California, and the step-son who raises chickens in the Ukraine. She was someone I would like to know. Or maybe that momentary connection without any expectations or wrangling of friendship, without the scheduling challenges that go with getting together with women friends was simply a gift to be cherished and enjoyed without longing for more.
